JHK’s Three-Act Play, Big Slide
A log mansion in the Adirondack Mountains…
A big family on the run…
A nation in peril…
Visit the Big Slide Page to order, perform, or see sample scenes.

Ho ho ho! It’s that time of year again. Here’s JHK’s holiday classic: A Christmas Orphan.

11-year-old Jeff Greenaway hears his mom and dad argue one night after an office Christmas party. He infers from their garbled squabble that he is an orphan, found in a willow basket on the welcome mat outside their New York apartment. Thinking now that his parents are imposters, he steals away to Grand Central Station and buys a train ticket to Drakesville, Vermont, where he intends to start life all over again.Print | Kindle | Kobo (Digital) | Barnes & Noble (Digital)

The exquisite morbidity of the BP oil spill has concentrated the collective national mind like few other events in this ongoing long emergency. How many times a day does it occur to you — perhaps while sitting in traffic, or oogling some girl in a nearby cubicle, or cruising the freezer stacks in the supermarket — that one mile deep in the Gulf of Mexico that crude is just blasting away into the deep blue sea? Anyway, it troubles my hours. But what if it hadn’t happened? What if the nation’s attention was not fixed on the “fierce urgency” of this disaster and we were left with all the tiresome familiar problems of politics and economy?

After the financial storms of May, people in the knife-and-fork-using nations may feel that all our troubles with money have been sorted out and settled. Greece had an apoplexy and Europe somehow survived — at least so far. Spain fell to its knees and apparently remains there, in mid-aria, waiting for an orchestra to strike up the next measure. Portugal is trying to hide in plain sight, like a beach-goer who has lost swimsuit in the surf. Hungary choked on something last week and was left sitting at the table with its face in a plate of goulash. Iceland has been put on, well, on ice after stiffing its British account holders. The Brits have discovered that they have enough money to run their country in the style of Edward the Confessor. France is weeping over all the Spanish, Greek, and Portuguese bad paper in its bank vaults. Italy, having become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Silvio Berlusconi, is eating a sparse lunch under the grape arbors. The Baltic states are sinking into a northern peat bog of penury…. And Germany remains upright, wondering how it can wiggle out of this sad-ass collective of fazed cookies.

June so far is a strange ebb tide of of events relating to the world’s money, but when the water goes out like that, you know it’s sure to return before long, and the peaceful mud-flats of June may vanish under a summer tsunami. I know I’m not alone in the creepy feeling that really nothing has been sorted out and the world is waiting to get hammered six days to Sunday by the consequences of living too large for too long. The markets have been stranded, too, gyrating on the peculiar life-support of robot-traders — since all the humans have packed up and left the scene for higher ground. The corporate creaming-off of anything not nailed down in America continues apace, with the cream ending up as icing on the petit fours passed around the twilight lawns of East Hampton.

President Obama may be lucky that he has something he can pretend to be decisive about in the BP oil spill. It’s allowed him to completely avoid taking a public stand on crucial parts of the financial reform legislation working its way through congress like a stinking bolus. For instance, where does Mr. Obama stand on the reform of credit default swap activities? This dark realm of swindling has come close to choking the American money system to death — and might yet do the job — but the president hasn’t offered up a word of leadership on it. My guess is that the gestures of reform will leave reform completely unfinished by the time the high water of events starts rushing back in. All the structural fault-lines will remain as even more decay sets in and new cracks appear. Something is gonna give this summer.

It all comes down to one thing: the world is mismanaging contraction. The world will not solve the problems of massive over-complexity with more complexity. But scaling down is apparently not an option, though it will happen whether we participate or not. The USA is like Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener who, when asked to do anything, replied, “I prefer not to.” His preference led him to a pauper’s grave.

The future attempts to regulate undersea oil drilling will send many companies to do their thing in other parts of the world where nobody gives a shit what you do offshore as long as you pony up the royalties to the grifters in charge onshore. America is going to lose a whole lot more of its own oil production. Smaller companies may shut down altogether from the cost of complying with new safety rules and an inability to get insurance. The oil from deep water in the Gulf of Mexico was how we hoped we would offset the ongoing depletions in Alaska. We’re going to have to import even more oil than the two-thirds-plus we already depend on. One thing President Obama — nor anyone else with an audience or a constituency — will speak a word about is our massive, incessant purposeless motoring.

Pretty soon, the oil missing from the Gulf will leave a message at the 7-Eleven stops in Dallas and Chattanooga, and before the year is out the cardboard signs that say “Out Of Gas” may hang on the pumps. A great hue and cry will rise out of the Nascar ovals and righteous lady politicians with decoupaged hair-doos will invoke the New World Order and the Book of Revelation in their rise to power. Reasonable men with moderate views will dither on the sidelines, afraid to offend one faction or another.

Sometime this summer that ebb tide of events is going to reverse and we’ll have more to contend with than just the shrieking wildlife suffocating in orange gunk, and the ruined spawning grounds of the shrimp, and the lost livelihoods of the sportfishing charter guides, and the tarball covered beaches and devalued real estate. We decided to de-complexify the hard way, the way that brings about as much pain and disorder as possible until we discover that the long emergency beats a path straight into a world made by hand.

____________

A sequel to my 2008 novel of post-oil America, World Made By Hand, will be published in September 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Press.

About James Howard Kunstler

James Howard Kunstler is the author of many books including (non-fiction) The Geography of Nowhere, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, Home from Nowhere, The Long Emergency, and Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology and the Fate of the Nation. His novels include World Made By Hand, The Witch of Hebron, Maggie Darling — A Modern Romance, The Halloween Ball, an Embarrassment of Riches, and many others. He has published three novellas with Water Street Press: Manhattan Gothic, A Christmas Orphan, and The Flight of Mehetabel.

Interesting that Germany a country that actually makes things is standing in the face of collapse. Just an observation. Not a judgement.
The news this morning of the mineral jackpot in Afghanistan is interesting. We’ll all be driving cars with laptop batteries soon.
There is a McClatchy article this morning detailing the last gulf oil spill. No trace of it 30 years later. So all we have to do is wait 30 years and we can eat shrimp again.
Aimlow Joe was here.http://www.aimlow.com

Now that I finally got a first comment… here’s something that you might want to check out: Neil Howe, of Howe and Strauss America’s experts on Generation and Turning theories, going back in the English line to the 100 Years War, will be on the radio talk show Coast-to-Coast, this Tuesday night. Check the schedule on the Coast-to-Coast website.
The reason you might be interested is the nature of todays time. Today’s Generational configuration is like that in 1931, and we are likely at the 3rd/4th Turning cusp. The third turning is the Fall and the fourth turning is Winter. Fall is maximum negativity and gridlock. Winter is the turning that will bring us the next great War, like the Revolution, Civil War and WWII, it is also the time that order is built not torn down.
Neil does a nice job explaining things, so if your’e interested in cycles and generational effects, please give him a listen. You might get in for a question too! To read-up on this get The Fourth Turning, Strauss and Howe, 1997,
DJL

Peak oil doomers didn’t predict that in a desperate rush to get every last drop we’d tear a hole in the planet and cause a catastrophe far worse than the economic one that would merely make the suburbs regret they were ever born. Climate doomers are hoping it is a wakeup call to curb our oil addiction. How can smart people not finally get sensible? We can set an example for those around us of knowing what the bare necessities really are, nurturing the local economy, and making an extended family of good friends.
Lynn10in10diet.com/
Diet for a small footprint and a small grocery bill

The total denial of the reality of contraction and its urgent demands echoes Bartleby’s quivering voice as his response to every responsibility: “I’d prefer not to.”
The news of TLE has landed in the dead letter office. unheeded, in the mass delusion that things will just keep going as they are.
And our fearless leader is back in the Gulf for another photo-op. Re-arrange those deck chairs, Cap’n.

I’m surprised I haven’t read any assertions that the oil “spill” proves the creamy-nougat-center theory that there’s plenty of oil and more to come.
It is a terrible irony that we wanted oil — badly! — and now we got in in a way that’s just making a mess of the one critical resource we need even more, the ocean.
We’re waiting for a number of ongoing plots to come to a head. And, while we wait to see where trouble will erupt next, we had better be getting our own affairs in order on a personal level.
Grow a garden, build a business selling something people want, and gather the resources to get the hell out of Dodge before this whole circus blows.
As always, learn to be healthy so you won’t be at the mercy of the modern medical paradigm when the SHTF. healthyplanetdiet.com/

“Peak oil doomers didn’t predict that in a desperate rush to get every last drop we’d tear a hole in the planet”
I beg to differ. Matt Savinar (LATOC) has an excellent Peak Oil primer that talks about looking for oil in “increasingly dangerous and unfriendly places”. I think 18,000 ft. beneath the Gulf of Mexico qualifies as dangerous.

“The news this morning of the mineral jackpot in Afghanistan is interesting. We’ll all be driving cars with laptop batteries soon.”
Mineral wealth in Afghanistan or what we are really doing in Afghanistan.
Today our attention was turned on both Huffington Post and MSNBC to the enormous mineral wealth in Afghanistan, inclucing gold.
Gen. Petraeus told the New York Times that:
“U.S. officials believe the vast veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold, lithium, and niobium could “fundamentally alter” the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war. U.S. officials told the newspaper Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the “most important mining centers in the world.”
Here’s the Global Friedman model at work as discussed today by Erin Burnett on Morning Joe:
Our military funded by the American taxpayer is working to protect the Chinese mining company in Afghanistan.
China has been loath to export their own mineral wealth to the west. One wonders what the deal is here.
I have mentioned before that I think the reason why the world has sat by and allowed us to wage pre-empive wars is because it benefits transnational corporations. Check out who has gotten contracts for the Iraqi oil.
David Rockefeller has been noted as saying that nation states should be decoupled from their national resources. Just another example of how disaster capitalism works. The private companies can make 300%-500% more than nationalized resources, as Naomi Kline has illustrated so well in her book “The Shock Doctrine”.
The other big story not mentioned are the 15 pipelines being built around the world, many of which are in the central asian plains.
You might want to check this out.
The 15 Oil And Gas Pipelines That Are Changing The World’s Strategic Map Gregory White The geopolitical landscape of the world is being remade by the increasing demand for energy resources from rising powers like China and India and preserved leaders, like the United States and Europe. That demand is resulting in a massive expansion of oil and gas delivery projects which are redrawing the battle-lines of resource conflicts, both in war and in diplomacy. The oil and gas business is taking advantage of the demand, and we have a rundown of the key pipelines reshaping the global economy.

Jim, another awesome round-up.
I wonder though if the cure for the malaise of over-complexity is less complexity (as if that’s possible) or the great simplification?
What if our decision making systems could be revolutionized so we can have real time consensus on all issues of collective importance? What if the votes were like online polls everybody could turn up to by simply signing in on their iphones?
WHat if the constitution got re-written like a wiki?
That’s the only kind of great simplification that will avert disaster.
Otherwise, biology says we are doomed anyway.http://hurricanekatrinakaif.com

It’s ironic that the two countries that initiated World War II in Europe, Germany and Italy, are now the countries most successfully adjusting to economic contraction. Maybe they learned from their defeat and humiliation that they can’t have things their own way all the time, a lesson that the U.S. has yet to learn.

Man, I wish Kunstler was wrong. But he’s dead-on as usual. It feels like things are about to snap. I watched a bow line snap on a boat winch once and it nearly killed the guy on the winch. I remember this creepy creaking sound just before the last ratchet click. I hear that sound in my mind now and am already wincing.
The Afghanis won’t give a shit about their newfound mineral wealth. It relates to the twenty-first-century world, and they want to go back to the seventh century. It’ll be just one more factor in the rationale for our imperialism, and when we exploit it, another reason for them to hate us.

The massive destruction in the Gulf was called by oil expert Matt Simmons at the end of May–he predicted that the Deepwater field was shattered and there was no way to fix it. The question then is ‘why isn’t Matt Simmons elevated to major talking-head status?’ Because Matt Simmons will also mention those words fenced off by MSM–he’ll talk about Peak Oil.
The only good news about the catastrophic clusterf**k in the gulf is that it will perhaps force people like Obama to stop thinking incrementally–maybe he’ll use his planned Tuesday prime-time address to talk about the fundamental changes afoot. I wouldn’t bet the farm on it, though.
Meanwhile, the Afghan fantasy about mineral wealth is a whipped cream topping on a sh*t sundae’. And releasing such info now calls into question why we were there in the first place–if I were a German soldier in Kandahar for NATO, I’d put down my rifle until somebody made a cogent case that the war wasn’t really about US Empire.
Hard sell, that.

Interesting, but I was reading on TOD that a large Norwegian oil rig is also experiencing pressure problems like the DH did prior to blowing, and they fear the same thing might happen there.
Can you say Black Ice at the North Pole? Santa’s beard all sooty black?
Oh, and I also read that the Saudis will look the other way if Isralie planes overfly them on the way to bombing Iran.
It just keeps on getting worse & worse. Yep, its going to be a long, hot summmer, but like Jim says, its all good.

Wait until the first big Hurricane dumps oil onto all the expensive homes on the East coast, covering all the Mercedes with a nice film and coating the fresh water resevoirs. Then people will care. Right now its just the bad luck of those poor fishermen. Where’s the news on all of the deadly gas and other emmisions that cause cancer by just breathing in minute particles that are swirling around in the air, thousands of times over the EPA guidelines? What about the fracures in the strata no one is covering? What about the changes in the absorbtion of heat from the water becoming darker, plus, the vast plumes getting into the various currents changing the weather for decades, if not forever? Gee whiz media talking heads, what about this stuff? I’m sure interested. Instead, were hand fed stories this morning of a kid getting ran over and some medical marihuana outlets closing….

Jim
why should we care what happens in the Gulf? The strongest support for off shore drilling is in Dumbfuckistan (red America, or the south), particularly along the coast. So screw ’em. They were the ones most loudly yelling “drill, baby drill”, so now you have it.

I read Jim’s book, THE LONG EMERGENCY during the summer of 2005 and one of the ideas that really got to me was the assertion that our political system might not be able to deal with PEAK OIL. Watching the ABC Sunday morning THIS WEEK yesterday with John Boehner and Stenny Hoyer unable to answer questions because they had to make political points confirmed that we are in over our heads. My local Congressman sent out a mailing with the headline, EARNING BACK THE MAJORITY, Well how about solving some of the problems facing this country instead of playing politics. If we can’t solve problems politically what does that leave? Jim is also correct in identifying part of the problem as our inability to arrive on a consensus of what is reality. The oil in the gulf is real but to connect the dots to more walkable living is a reality which will be open to debate.

The news about the Afghan mineral wealth just explains why both the soviets and we (What a surprise!), are there in the first place. The mineral wealth of Afghanistan might be news to the MSM (everything that isn’t Hollywood seems to be), but I have every confidence that the NSA and the KGB at least, have been aware of this for decades and have considered its strategic importance to the nth degree.

The only thing worse than a blowout in the Gulf would be two blowouts in the Gulf. The relief being drilled to plug the current blowout might itself experience a blowout.
Expert warns oil well may not be capped until Christmas:guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/13/bp-oil-spill-timetable
OMG!

A trillion in mineral wealth in Afghanistan which is located in some of the worst geography in the world and presenting an enormous security challenge – gosh, send in the Marines (and Army and the Air Force). After 8 long years, we finally have our reason for being there and now we know who’s going to pay for our occupation of another sovereign nation. However, given how poorly the US made out after our invasion of Iraq for their oil reserves, I don’t have much confidence we’ll end up with anything other than lots more dead and maimed young Americans and squat for mineral wealth transferred back here. But there are a few multi-nationals who’ll make out very well and of course the US Militray-Inductrial Complex will assist in all that transfer of wealth.

Though I really like your metaphor tying the ‘collective national mind’ to Bartelby, I think the relation to T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock is closer to the mark.
I don’t think that we as a nation are saying we would ‘prefer not to’ change our oil-dependent life. I rather think this spill has been our giant wake-up call. The video of the gushing leak symbolizes both our awakening to the real problems that our oil-fueled lifestyle causes along with our utter impotence and inablitity to do a damn thing other than watch in mute rage as our happy motoring existence engulfs us…
“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.”

There is a McClatchy article this morning detailing the last gulf oil spill. No trace of it 30 years later. So all we have to do is wait 30 years and we can eat shrimp again.
Huh?
And ten years from now you can say “there’s no trace of it after 40 years. So all we have to do is wait 40 years and we can eat shrimp again.”
?

There are in fact multiple leaks in the Gulf in the oilfield at DH. Russian oceanographers brought in by BP are quietly confirming that the rock above the field has been shattered and there are at least 18 known leaks. Any attempt to ‘cap’ the leak that’s featured in all of the web cam film will just cause oil to pressurize out of one of the other leaks. Absent blowing it up with a nuclear weapon, there’s no way to fix it (a nuclear weapon would generate temperatures sufficient to melt the rock into a patch of sorts).whatdoesitmean.com/index1379.htm
We’ve done the impossible–we’ve created a mess that we can’t fix in any way.

A final note regarding last week’s thread:
Asoka’s mantra is “Do I contradict myself? Well then I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.”
And so, he has no difficulty in saying I imagine even most of the days of your life, QSHTIK, you are engaged in cooperative and peaceful activities and then 6 hours later saying Your whole life has been dedicated to promoting killing.
Asoka should stick to his area of expertise … avoiding the payment of income tax by avoiding gainful employment.

I for one care…there are many blue dots in this red state. Many of us were screaming at Mary Landrieu to vote no when the vote came up to go to Iraq. How was it that we knew what she didn’t or appeared not to know. Little did we realize what corporate whores were leading us.
You easily write us all off as redneck morons. It shows how little people value one of the oldest, richest and often most tolerant cultures in this country. South Lousiana people are as diverse as its food and music. Remember as you gather your plastic wrapped veggies and meat at the local Winn Dixie, drop your child off at soccer, fire up your laptop, strap on your IPOD, text your girlfriend, write out your to do list, wash your clothes, put on your makeup. All this along with every damn thing you do 24/7 is courtesy of us stupid rednecks who walk a tightrope of impending disaster and loss of a way of life so that you can live your life in comfort and ease.
I for one am watching and crying for my beloved state, watching and waiting for this president to do the right thing and make the hard choice to tell the entire country that their irresponsible need for energy is as much to blame as the criminal actions of BP. I am watching as my home becomes valueless, my business becomes negligible and my way of life disappears along with the wildlife, the food, culture and the sheer happiness and love of life that is Lousiana.

Pauper’s grave or rich man’s grave, a grave is a grave. Sure, for 20 years, 100 years, maybe to some it matters. Especially if there are descendants. But after 1000 years, only archaeologists will care, and after a million years, your pulverized bones become part of a strata of rock. :=)

” Sometime this summer that ebb tide of events is going to reverse and we’ll have more to contend with than just the shrieking wildlife suffocating in orange gunk, and the ruined spawning grounds of the shrimp, and the lost livelihoods of the sportfishing charter guides, and the tarball covered beaches and devalued real estate. We decided to de-complexify the hard way, the way that brings about as much pain and disorder as possible until we discover that the long emergency beats a path straight into a world made by hand.” -JHK
Another excellent portrayal of the insidious miasma that is collective denial and cognitive dissonance! I was also seeing this as the Great Upshot. Descent by the most painful of means. Gad-damn fools; it didn’t have to be this way… or maybe it does (learning “the hard way” and all that). But, I sure as hell don’t see much lar’nin’ goin’ on, do you?
Jeeeezuz H Jumped-up-keericed-on-a-crutch, being [semi-]informed is becoming painful. Why? Because it points to the absolutely WILLFUL ignorance of most of the “public” and their “representatives”. Makes me want to spit.
…And, as far as “being an example to others”; I’m good and done with that shit. NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR IT. Get that? Finally? You’re intruding on a powerful fantasy of never-ending comfort and righteousness, and that can get you hurt in the real world (or at the very least, make you a target). Fairly soon these “folks” will be so busy surviving, they’ll forget all about you aside from your usefulness (to them).
Finally, I have to agree with that feeling/concept of things being wound WAY too tight. The clockspring of creeping paranoia….creak…click…creak……
(Pretty soon I’ll just be in the throes of unexplained fits of hysterical laughter- you gots to have release, ya know.)

“Why should we care what happens in the Gulf? The strongest support for off shore drilling is in Dumbfuckistan (red America, or the south), particularly along the coast. So screw ’em. They were the ones most loudly yelling “drill, baby drill”, so now you have it.”
If what happens in the Gulf stayed in the Gulf, then your position would be valid. But the Gulf Stream is going to screw up and possibly kill the Atlantic Ocean and possibly the world.
And, of course, they’re still yelling, “Drill, baby, drill.” Talk about brilliant… Though it does explain Palin’s popularity.

Maybe it’s pointless – but we could protest the wreckage and stupidity, instead of sitting quietyly behind our screens?
Here is a quick round-up of spontaneous protests against BP, and irresponsible oil use, around the U.S. – gathered by Radio Ecoshock:ecoshock.org/downloads/energy/ES_BP_Protests_LoFi.mp3
That is 20 minutes, 9 megabytes.
What? The mainstream media didn’t tell you people are protesting across the country?
Let’s at least make some change out of this mess.
Alex
Radio Ecoshockhttp://www.ecoshock.org

One thing President Obama — nor anyone else with an audience or a constituency — will speak a word about is our massive, incessant purposeless motoring.

Tomorrow night I expect Obama to use the BP crisis to push a CFN agenda.
The main points he could address I expect him to address are how to create a clean-energy future that combats climate change, while at the same time creating a new economy powered by green jobs and ending our dependence on foreign oil.
If, by working with Congress, he can do that, I don’t think it is necessary for him to use the words “purposeless motoring”

JHK:
“I know I’m not alone in the creepy feeling that really nothing has been sorted out and the world is waiting to get hammered six days to Sunday by the consequences of living too large for too long.”
Jim from Watkins Glen:
“It feels like things are about to snap.”
This is exactly how things feel to me.
It gnaws around the edges of my days as I go about the business of trying to prepare for…what?

Cajun girl, for people like you, I regret that you have to endure attitudes in your location. I have long supported HIGH taxes on oil and gas especially to wean us off of the petroleum teat.
But it seems that the press I read is full of people from the area who fully support the oil industry and EXPANDED offshore drilling. It’s hard to have any sympathy for a collectgive attitude like that. That is the part of teh country that voted overwhelimingly for Bush, who promoted deregulation of the oil industry there. I am however saddened at the loss of wildlife, they are voiceless and are suffering for the avarice of humans.

“Tomorrow night I expect Obama to use the BP crisis to push a CFN agenda.” -Asoka
Well, that would be nice, but I don’t think he’s onto “controlled contraction”. THAT’S the necessary (and CFN) approach, and his rhetoric of “growth” and “recovery” plainly shows where his focus is bent.
Again, sincerely, it would be nice, but I wouldn’t bet anything valuable on it; nor would I expect anything in the area of a realistic assessment of our “lifestyle”, or any suggestion that we can’t “have it all”. No one (except for those already in the process of scaling way back) wants to hear it, I’m afraid.

“Where’s the news on all of the deadly gas and other emmisions that cause cancer by just breathing in minute particles that are swirling around in the air, thousands of times over the EPA guidelines? What about the fracures in the strata no one is covering? What about the changes in the absorbtion of heat from the water becoming darker, plus, the vast plumes getting into the various currents changing the weather for decades, if not forever? Gee whiz media talking heads, what about this stuff?”
Fahey,
I’ll tell you what about it. You’re gonna get HAPPY TALK and nothin’ but HAPPY TALK and you’re gonna like it, got that? Now get out there and go shopping for God’s sake!!! And don’t leave home without your plastic.

Everyone in this country by their actions is for EXPANDED offshore drilling! Do you still drive, eat, wear clothes, watch TV, read, turn on the heat, cook, mow the lawn, require furniture, get your mail? When you can give up a few of these things then maybe we can talk about enduring attitudes.
People here fully support what feeds and clothes their families. If not given opportunities to do something different in their communities by the corporations they work for and their elected officals they will opt for what is near and dear to them. I am glad you at least find the plight of of our wildlife sad.

As the true extent of the catastrophic oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is incrementally made known to the American people, they look to their president for justice and relief. Starting today, Mr. Obama’s photo opportunity will include a whirlwind tour of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
The corporate-controlled news media will be delighted to see Mr. Obama study blueprints of the oil disaster as he meets with British Petrolium corporate big shots and high-level government officials. We will be told that BP is going to be held totally responsible for its ecological crimes and therefore, our government will stand down and leave BP in complete control of any cleanup efforts that might be made. The fact that this massive oil leak cannot be stopped anytime soon won’t be mentioned.
Tuesday night, as President Obama delivers his 15-minute fireside chat, he will look to the TelePrompTer on his left and then look to the TelePrompTer on his right and promise the American people that everyone affected by the oil spill in the Gulf will receive appropriate pity payments and that a thorough investigation will avenge all corporate crimes. President Obama will have a stern and angry facial expression as he delivers his speech, so we will know that he ain’t shittin’ around!
Will President Obama actually kick the asses of the industrial leaders who bought him his office? Will our esteemed leader really be able to make BP pay for its crimes, or will BP slither off into bankruptcy after its owners have looted the company?
Can a former junior senator from Illinois, who didn’t even finish his first term and whose previous governmental experience consisted of community organizing, rise to the occasion and save us from an ecological disaster?
I’m sorry, I know that this is a very serious subject and I shouldn’t be making jokes about it.

Stupid ideas are like viruses that pass from brain to brain and Obama is no less susceptible to infection than the rest of us.
One such stupid idea is that economics as an academic field and as a profession has just one thing worth saying other than there’s no such thing as a free lunch and another stupid idea is that firms such as Goldman Sachs and its Wall Street brethren are populated by the “best and the brightest”.
Both ideas are bullshit of the highest order yet they were generally accepted by the great and the wise and so now we find ourselves in the financial mess we’re in.
What does Obama know anyway? He’s a lawyer by training so who is he to go against the well considered advice of financial heavyweights like Bernanke, Larry Summers and all the great brains of Wall Street and Ivy League universities. Obama, like everyone else, is infected by their ideas and acts accordingly.
Are we going to clamp down on the financial lunacies that brought us here? No. For example, do we need a market in credit default swaps? Of course not. Should anyone be able to buy a CDS and therefore buy insurance against the possible default on bonds they don’t even own? Of course not, the idea is just plain laughable. Yet we have it and it’s legal.
I’ve heard nothing about abolishing such an absurd practice. The talk is of regulation, of “transparency” or maybe of not allowing certain banks to trade in certain derivatives. The justifications are complex, intricately reasoned, require leaps of mind twisting logic that no reasonable person could accept.
You see, they tell us, a market in CDSs provides “liquidity”, you see, it reduces “systemic risk”. What, you don’t know what they’re talking about? That’s ok, don’t feel inadeqate because neither do they. All those Wharton and Harvard degrees are just parents’ money pissed into the wind.
What we got was wild ass speculation and, far from reducing systemic risk, we got speculative blow outs of monumental proportions, taxpayer funded bailouts or should we say Chinese funded bailouts, seeing as western govts are dead broke.
In business and finance you are judged by your results. Fine, so judge the titans of Wall Street, of our central banks and the business world by their results which are fucked. When you hear them speak, don’t listen, in my humble opinion they are totally full of shit and you cannot trust one damned thing they say.

Schizoid asked, “Can a former junior senator from Illinois, who didn’t even finish his first term and whose previous governmental experience consisted of community organizing, rise to the occasion and save us from an ecological disaster?”
Can a former Alaskan governor who could not even finish her term and whose knowledge seems to come from a combination of a literal reading of the Bible and whatever she scribbles on her palm, do any better?
No, wait. God will save the righteous and those enviros blew up that rig. Besides, global warming and peak oil are myths, Governor Palin says.
We are so screwed.

Overwrought hyperbole?
Of course! …But we’re used to finding the nuggets of truth hidden therein, are we not? (If not, why would you enjoy reading JHK? ;o) )
Here ya be…
(The Five Points really are the pith of the matter.)informationclearinghouse.info/article25702.htm

“In business and finance you are judged by your results. Fine, so judge the titans of Wall Street, of our central banks and the business world by their results which are fucked. When you hear them speak, don’t listen, in my humble opinion they are totally full of shit and you cannot trust one damned thing they say.” -Cash
Good advice! Why more people won’t listen to good advice puzzles me. Fantasy intrusion, again?
In any event, thanks.

Too many people will just hear: clean-energy,blahblahblah; combat climate change, blahblahblah; green jobs, blahblahblah.
Come on, for most people to pay attention and “get it” these days, you’ve gotta whack ’em over the head repeatedly with a 5-second sound bite.
And turn up the volume while you’re at it. Say it like you mean it. All this pretty talk is getting us nowhere. I’d say “massive, incessant, purposeless motoring” is just about perfect.
Meanwhile, the distraction provided by the Gulf geyser (can we stop calling it a “spill” already?)nightmare certainly came at an interesting time. It’s getting our minds off the impending economic collapse, if only for a moment here and there.

I don’t know about you, but I find it particularly strange about this sudden jackpot discovered in Afghanistan! It’s really suspicious. How weird it is the General David Petraeus is made the announcement of vast minerals have been discovered in Afghanistan! Is this the real reason we are there? How is it that such a discovery was made by the military?
I think this is going to raise many eyebrows around the world!

Can a former junior senator from Illinois, who didn’t even finish his first term and whose previous governmental experience consisted of community organizing, rise to the occasion and save us from an ecological disaster?

I see you still do not understand what the Obama victory was about. You apparently do not recall the numerous times Obama said it wasn’t about him but about us.
The answer to your question is no. No one person can save us. That was not the promise of the 2008 election anyway.
But one person can inspire us to save ourselves. Could Jack Kennedy get us to the moon. No. But he could inspire the collective effort that ended up with a moon landing.
The premise of your question is ridiculous. No one person can “save us” by himself or herself, be they Paul or Palin or anyone else.
But then at the end of your post you as much as admitted you are only joking, and that’s cool.

I find JHK’s takes on urban design and peak oil much, much more trenchant than his views on economics. The post above, for example, just kind of meanders about, from the Gulf blowout, to Euro-economic whining,circling around to complain about Obama, etc,

I am confused about one thing — and I’m sure there are very smart people here who can help me out. Everyone talks about “energy independence” or not “importing oil” and things like that.
From where I sit, all out oil is imported. We import some from countries — say like Saudi Arabia who we have to kowtow to to keep the oil flowing. We import the rest from giant global corporations like BP — to whom we have to kowtow to keep the oil flowing.
The only difference I can see is that the first group responds to money and ideology, while the second responds to money (and, in some sense ideology).
Drilling in Alaska or the Gulf would only reduce our dependence on the kindness (or mercenary qualities) of strangers if the oil were being drilled by the US government — or if there were some requirement that oil drilled in the US would have to stay in the US. As it is, BP drills the oil and then sells it on the open global market to the highest bidder.
This is where I find myself scratching my head over the “Drill, Baby, Drill” people. The oil drilled anywhere in the US will be sold to the highest bidder — so it won’t reduce prices. And, we know from history, that if the price starts to fall, the producers will simply dial back the spigots until they get the price up where they want it to be.
So, I don’t see how giant global corporations drilling in the Gulf, Alaska, or anywhere else in the US reduces our dependence. We will either kiss the asses of Saudis and send them our money or we will kiss the asses of Exxon Mobil or BP and send them our money.
Until the US government starts drilling for oil and selling it to us as cost, we will be dependent — but that would be Socialism.

Deepwater Horizon’s exposure of the limits of technology must be great fodder for JHK’s forthcoming book on the delusions of techno-triumphalism. The situation a mile submerged isn’t turning out like the movie version of Apollo 13’s fix – where the technician dumps a box of parts on the table and says, ” We’ve got to find a way to make this – fit into the hole for this – using nothing but that.”
A mile undersea – we don’t have an app for that. Even James Cameron and Kevin Costner are flailing away with half-measures to a fix. When Hollywood lets you down, the usual suspect memes aren’t aligning. Having an iPad won’t put a fix in play. Crowd-sourcing isn’t coming to the rescue with collective intelligence.
If, as the plumbers say, “water always wins” then oil under water must doubly win at confounding human ingenuity. NASA derived technology isn’t solving anything, deep sea-bed mineral mining technology developed by U.S., Germany and Japan for half a century isn’t in play, It would seem that when the big, important stuff goes zotz, we might as well be chimps with big plastic bats beating on it.

The world will not solve the problems of massive over-complexity with more complexity. But scaling down is apparently not an option, though it will happen whether we participate or not.

If scaling down is not an option then a hard crash becomes a certainty.
A culture that has to go a mile into the sea to meet its energy needs and can’t see anything wrong with it is doomed. We now live in a world where blind men drive school buses and telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. We live in a time of bread and games.
I remember September 11th, the outrage. I was not alone in my anger, my outrage was universal, everywhere. With a sixth sense I knew instantly it had to be the same guy responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole. But with nearly ten years rolled around the clock my most vivid memory of that day is not of my outrage. My memory is about being alone with one simple question.
What did we ever do to piss this guy off so much?
I’m not writing for an answer to that question. This is not about September 11th. I’m writing about being alone in asking the question, about being alone in demanding an answer. I’m not special; I know many others are as alone as I but that we are too far apart to see each another.
It is still not ok to ask my simple question without accepting the crazy fundamentalist Islamist canned response. Taking it further leads to introspection to asking. Could we have done anything wrong? When speaking the truth becomes a revolutionary act searching for it is too.
The number of questions that it is not ok to ask grows daily and nobody notices.
Our government does the same thing over and over again and expects different results. We have a president who only listens to Ivy League experts who turn out to be blind school bus drivers in disguise. Experts capable only of doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. No recipe for real change, no recipe for scaling down.
Every year a smaller and smaller group of people owns more and more while the message to consume more and work harder to join a shrinking elite drones ever on. Globalization not localization is the mantra chanted on the tube. Forget who you are as you chase the carrot on the stick. We live in a time of Nascar, Tattoos and Jägermeister, petty amusement. We live in a time where to fix the economy we are expected to spend more and more on useless stuff with less and less. Wondering if we should change the way we live is a forbidden question on the list. This is a time of bread and games.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Don’t let anybody convince you otherwise. Don’t listen to the siren song, it’s time to do something and get angry.

Until the US government starts drilling for oil and selling it to us as cost, we will be dependent — but that would be Socialism.

That is how Venezuelans get 12 cents a gallon. Socialism is terrible, isn’t it?
The “national sovereignty” Tea Party folks would like 14 cents a gallon gasoline, but they would rather pay extra a capitalism tax of $2.70 per gallon on top of the 14 cents. Great free market, isn’t it?money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/

Ghostlimb said: “If, as the plumbers say, “water always wins” then oil under water must doubly win at confounding human ingenuity.”
It’s even better than that. It is strands of toxic oil snot… dispersant-formed underwater plumes that BP will not admit even exists.

I second the suggestion to listen to Neil Howe on Coast-to-Coast. This is a crisis era and knowledge of how previous crises played out and were resolved would be helpful to know. One of the ideas that Howe and his late partner Bill Strauss about crises is that one issue consistently sucks in all other issues and then each crisis is resolved on the basis on that one issue. For years, my pick for that crisis has been energy, and it’s starting to play out that way.
I do have one dispute with you. I think the crisis began to rumble after 911 and really got underway in 2005, so the crisis is rushing ahead of the generational lineup. I’m not the only person who used to post to fourthturning.com who thinks that. Several of us predicted the crisis to start in 2000-2001 because of the tie-in between the start of Strauss and Howe’s crisis eras and the start of secular bear markets. We’ve been in a secular bear market since 2000.

I haven’t noticed a decrease in people’s oil-engorged habits since this calamity, have you?
Here’s a perfect example here in Canada. Every day there are still enormous drive-thru line-ups of sloth-like Canadians, belching fumes from their vehicles at every Tim Hortons across this country. (Tim Hortons is a ubiquitous coffee/donut/fast-food outlet with almost 2900 drive-thrus.) To my amazement this behaviour goes on unabated, even despite the good weather.
These donut-snorfling, lazy-assed, coffee-swilling, ignorant cretins, are obviously WILLFULLY unconscious, as you would have to be well beyond deaf, dumb and blind to not know what’s going on in the Gulf. I even see kids in their backseats. They do this in front of their children! And we all know that parents lead by example, not what they say. They obviously don’t give a flying f**k. They truly deserve our wrath.
For me, this sort of behaviour is a lightening rod for our culture’s greater apathy and indifference, because unfortunately the problem goes way beyond these morons.
It’s also the “isn’t-that-terrible-what’s-happening-in-the-Gulf” people who gaily continue to do their 100km-return commute to work each day, and then in the evening and weekends drive to the big box stores that have killed practically every small (walkable) town in North America. They know there IS a problem, but they’re either oblivious to the true nature of their decisions or they shrug their shoulders and say “Ahhh, but what can I do?”.
Beyond this bunch, there are the tens of millions who are trapped in their suburban, car-dependant hells with limited options at their disposal. Circumstances have subjugated them to their vehicles. Even if they wanted to do something, it might take years before they can transition to a less oil-depandant lifestyle. This is a disturbing bellwether of how this whole Long Emergency is going to play itself out.
But let’s face it, we’re ALL hypocrites if we haven’t taken steps to significantly change our behaviour as a result of this colossal catastrophe. The only way anything will change is if people actually DO something about their oil habit. (And not using a drive-thru is barely scratching the surface of change.) Otherwise all the stamping around and disgust adds up to just pissing into the wind (or oil in the gulf).
Her’s an interesting article from todays’ Globe and Mail:theglobeandmail.com/life/family-and-relationships/mommy-is-the-oil-spill-going-to-kill-that-bird/art…

Why is the GoM still leaking? Maybe, just maybe, our elcted officials are so corrupted by corporate gift and graft, they literally can’t act. Hamstrung they are. BP assaulted US shores and the word from DC is … mute.
Next question: Why is it we allow our politicians to be bought and beholden to corporations?
Let’s try a scenario where elected officials are completely forbidden from accepting any gift in any form. Noncompliance will result in the “official” being led away in cuffs doing the orange jumpsuit shuffle.

Seayoung asks: “Why is the GoM still leaking?”
My understanding is that a company named BP drilled a hole in the ocean floor, after being given a permit by the two oil men in the white house for the last eight years.
It is leaking because Bush/Cheney gave permits for drilling after gutting the regulatory processes and buying off the safety inspectors, so no maintenance was done.
The Gulf BP problem is the result of anti-government, anti-regulatory ideology carried out by Bush and Cheney.

CG, you’re close to cutting to the heart of the problem. There are a lot of southern communities where real people and their families live and work and where they actually care about the environment around them.
Louisiana’s petroleum and chemical industries, really even the N.O. tourist “industry,” is just another example of the way the modern world has been built. Local people, local needs, the local environment are sacrificed to market needs hundreds and thousands of miles away. Nigeria’s oil, China’s labor. The Dutch destroyed both the nutmeg trees and the people of the Bandanese islands to establish a monopoly over the European trade. Same, same. This isn’t something that just happened with Tom Friedman and Dick Cheney.
I don’t know what the schedule is, how often they run, but there are regular miles-long coal trains running through Memphis. Somebody’s mountains west of here are being blasted apart to stoke the fires back east.
How in the world can we be foolish enough to call anything “democracy” when we can’t control the jobs we need to support our families, our neighborhoods, our resources, our rivers, the air we breathe?
Now, the larger South, the part of the country that for all our cussedness and supposed independence and rebelliousness, has always been controlled by big landowners, that South, like it or not, has been little more than a cancerous pawn in national politics since Bremer shot Wallace. The “southern strategy” has swallowed the Republican party whole and regurgitated a truly toxic monster in its place.
Don’t take it personally, CG, that the immune system of the rest of the country really does need to attack and destroy that monster. Those of us who live here need to be hacking away at it too.
Yes, as someone pointed out here a few weeks ago, there are a few people here who still know how to hunt, fish and farm. Good luck wresting any of that lovely delta farmland from the corporations.

You are correct that the Russians knew about the Afghanistan minerals, in fact, the US surveys were little more than confirmation of Russian data. The US didn’t toss the Russians out, or war with the Taliban over the minerals. What both “enemies” were threatening is/was control of the opium/heroin supply that funds the west’s itel services black ops (among other things). But support for this operation is waning, so corporate war support gets drummed up in return for potential access to the minerals.

“…Absent blowing it up with a nuclear weapon, there’s no way to fix it (a nuclear weapon would generate temperatures sufficient to melt the rock into a patch of sorts”
Unless of course, the blast simply shattered enough basalt rock to cause thousands of oil leaks from each fracture, making the problem well and truly unfixable.

According to a post on TOD by dougr, it appears that the reason for the failure of the ‘top kill’ was that the well casing below the seabed is cracked or broken.
So, the ONLY hope to finish this off will be the relief wells, which wont be in until Oct, or Nov>?
This means that is going to flow into the Gulf until that time. And if that fails…..
One other thing, they shouldn’t have cut the riser pipe so close to the BOP.
Anyhoo…..Didja know about Floridas Black Sand Beaches? They glow in the dark.

Thanks Nicho. You’re post nails it for all to see. Drilling in the US or “our” coastal waters does absolutely zip as far as “our” dependence on foreign oil. We depend on foreign oil and always will to a higher and higher degree.

“It would seem that when the big, important stuff goes zotz, we might as well be chimps with big plastic bats beating on it.”
HA! Sorry, perhaps my sense of humor has taken a hard turn into the macabre, but that image (and the way you worded it) really tickled me. Thanks for the laugh AND an incisive comment.
Ps. “zotz” seems to be a term of electrical malfunction/burnout, doesn’t it? Yow! ;o)

“Next question: Why is it we allow our politicians to be bought and beholden to corporations?”
Are you really serious? Really? I don’t allow that, nor do any of the 300 million + citizens of the USA. Funny thing is that we have no choice, or didn’t you realize that? What are “we” gonna do? Vote the bastards out of office to be replaced by even worse bastards? Pretend our votes count for anything? You must not be familiar with the idea of government corruption.

Was it this?
Two things come to mind as I read this piece on extreme environmentalists:
1) veganism (I’m sure you know the type – usually female – who won’t exploit any animal but who personally have had a couple of abortions … try wrapping your mind around that.)
2) people who won’t kill a bug because it might be the reincarnation of somebody’s grandmother (example: my wife’s cousin Paulette).

“Never let a crisis go to waste.”
Rahm Emanuel (coincidental? dual citizenship- US and Israel)
And you better belief they won’t.
The ‘A’ word (Austerity) is definitely coming sooner than you may think.
After all, someone’s got to pay for the greatest theft in the history of the world.
You guessed it- it’s going to be the debt slaves of the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Did you say Credit Default Swaps along with reform?
Heh!, by the way, didn’t Obama get a rather large campaign contribution from Goldman Sachs and doesn´t he have some Goldman ex(?)-Employees working with him to make things right?
It’s high time to drop those old fantasies about this current shill in a long line of shills, following through on your wants and dreams.

Schizoid asked, “Can a former junior senator from Illinois, who didn’t even finish his first term and whose previous governmental experience consisted of community organizing, rise to the occasion and save us from an ecological disaster?”
Can a former Alaskan governor who could not even finish her term and whose knowledge seems to come from a combination of a literal reading of the Bible and whatever she scribbles on her palm, do any better?
No, wait. God will save the righteous and those enviros blew up that rig. Besides, global warming and peak oil are myths, Governor Palin says.
We are so screwed.
Yes we are screwed.
Schizoid is right about Oboma and you are (mostly) right about Palin. But who we pick for national talk show host is mostly irrelevant. We are unlikely to get one who departs from the script to any significant degree after election. Carter was marginilized, Kennedy was killed; now they vet obedience before elections. Those who flunk find their funds drying up, the media ignoring or mocking them, and/or a scandal or two.
So none are likely to actually lead or save us from anything, but will read their script off the prompter.
There is no saving this ship, despite denials from the captian and the officers, it has hit an iceberg, is taking on water, and the crew is drilling holes to let the water out! It is too late to change the captian, revise the cruising plan, redesign the ship or order more lifeboats. The survival and well-being of the passengers will depend on their ability to evaluate the situation and take appropriate action to save themselves individually or in small groups. Making rafts might help. A mutiny, however well intentioned or justified is likely to increase the casualties.

Having noted the abuse and anger, including from
the president, towards BP, it makes me wonder how Americans will react when they have to join mile long queues to buy fuel.
I suspect the reaction will be very over the top especially when they realise it is permanent !

…And, lest we forget, even our rage has been co-opted by corporatist schemers. I think it’s important to realize the tea-baggers were the product of Koch Industries in their [successful] efforts to open up offshore drilling. (Remember that asswipe Aaron Tippin with his “Drill Here, Drill Now” jingoistic crapola? You DO, don’t you? Hey, where is that shithead these days?)
It’s all of a piece, and it’s all come home to roost. Priorities, anyone? Chase that dollar, anyone? Slay your [one and only] environment, anyone? Sacrifice your future progeny, anyone?
It just might be all over but the weeping, eh?
Who told that singular hitch-hiking story, anyhoo?
Hitcher to Farmer:
…I dunno; I ain’t much interested in politics.
Farmer to Hitcher:
Well son, that may be, but politics is for damn-sure interested in YOU.
Man, I’m losing it; ’nuff venting…. Later

Greetings:
Jim, another excellent essay. It is the President’s fault for this BP oil spill according to a peak oil prep site that sells you tricks on how to stay and survive in your home when the next disaster happens, be it gays getting married, peak oil or Moselms,Vegertairan socialists,or Joe the plummber trying to pass laws that promote their holy book. But I ask how,because he would not allow drilling on the USA mainland,but we have no oil left according to Hubbert’s peak,of course we do,its those damm enviormental nut jobs, plenty of oil. This I read of those sites trying to sell me stuff to prepare for peak oil, neighbors,and other Conservatives in my town who run everything. So instead of aruging I borrow the Kunstler phrase, no worries, it’s all good.

bravo. your post rings heartbreakingly true and i am so sorry for you – sorry for all of us. what rugger wrote is but a small taste of the real reason this country is doomed; failure to recognize the interconnectedness of everything.

is part 2 in response to yr buddists in boulder [ or somewhere in colorado]
im pro life and vegetarian
you wrote:
8m i see you at a typewriter somewhere and you must be like……ETC..id like to see the rest of what you thought 8ms like
DO YOU RECALL WRITING SOMETHING LIKE THAT EARLIER THIS YEAR?

It is still leaking because Obamas corporate masters have made it clear that BP needs to be protected at ALL costs, irrespective of the US coastline(s)and associated plant & animal life, businesses, livelihoods and futures it is destroying. Did I mention the press (and I use the term loosely) just rolls over and prints the propaganda?
Why is BP drilling at the edge of the engineering envelope? Because you fuckers worship the automobile, won’t walk, ride a bike, take the bus or a train – so much against it you are that now most of you can’t walk or ride a bike, there are few buses left to take and good luck finding a train. Christ you can’t even carpool.
Partisan bullshit is really fucking tired. Bush, Obama, Palin – really WHO THE FUCK CARES?!?
We’re here because people can’t see or think past the agenda and the psuedo-belongingness of their red or blue or green thought attenuator. You are fucking tools of “your” party.
Learn the think for yourself now or rue the day you made the choice not to.

Conunstadamus asked: “Partisan bullshit is really fucking tired. Bush, Obama, Palin – really WHO THE FUCK CARES?!?”
I CARE! If you don’t want Bush back in the form of Palin, you have to care.
Eternal vigilance is the price of interconnected consciousness.

Hello. Bush never left. Came back tanned, rested and a little taller this time around. The rest did him good though – I mean, he at least sounds intelligent. But alas, same corporate sponsers – defense contractors, Big oil, health insurance and a big new one flush with cash – unions.
It’s a fascist state, bought and paid for with tax dollars. DC is just theater.

Conunstradamos said: “It’s a fascist state, bought and paid for with tax dollars. DC is just theater.”
You are going off script a bit. The standard line is that DC is just kabuki theater.
I guess the theater includes ordering all federal agencies to undertake a study and make recommendations for ways to cut spending. Obama did that. Good actor that Obama.
I guess the theater includes ordering a review of all federal operations to identify and cut wasteful spending and practices. Obama did that.
I guess the theater includes instituting enforcement for equal pay for women. Obama did that on his first day in office, thereby improving the lives of millions of women. Damn good theater that was.
I guess the theater includes beginning the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. The troops are now out of the cities and the number of deaths have decreased as a result. Socially relevant theater that saves the lives of soldiers. Not bad.
I guess the theater includes families of fallen soldiers having expenses covered and to be on hand when the body arrives at Dover AFB. Nice theatrical touch there. The families appreciate that bit of theater.
I guess the theater includes ending the Bush media blackout on war casualties and the reporting of full information. More theater that the families appreciate.
I guess the Obama theater includes ending the media blackout on covering the return of fallen soldiers to Dover AFB; the media is now permitted to do so pending adherence to respectful rules and approval of fallen soldier’s family. This is a complete change from the Bush theater version.
I guess the theater includes the White House and federal government respecting the Freedom of Information Act. Novel theater that.
I guess the theater includes instructing all federal agencies to promote openness and transparency as much as possible and limits on lobbyist’s access to the White House.
This particular theater puts limits on White House aides working for lobbyists after their tenure in the administration.
I guess the theater includes ending the previous stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan longer than their enlistment date. Rather respectful theater, wouldn’t you say?
I guess the theater includes phasing out the expensive F-22 war plane and other outdated weapons systems, which weren’t even used or needed in Iraq/Afghanistan. Money saving theater that. Bush ran up a $12 TRILLION dollar debt in his theatrical production. Just a bit different than Obama.
I guess Obama’s theater includes removing restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research and federal support for stem-cell and new biomedical research and new federal funding for science and research labs. Now there is a bit of theater that can save millions of lives, but Bush opposed it. New boss not like the old boss.
I guess Obama’s theater includes States being permitted to enact federal fuel efficiency standards above federal standards. Bush opposed that also. They seem to have different theater scripts, Conunstradamus. Haven’t you noticed that yet?
Obama’s theater includes increased infrastructure spending (roads, bridges, power plants) after years of Bush neglect.
Obama’s theater includes funds high-speed, broadband Internet access to K-12 schools and provides new funds for school construction. Did Bush miss that part of the theater or was Bush’s script different?
Obama’s theater calls for the prison at Guantanamo Bay to be phased out. Bush’s theater didn’t give a damn: lock ’em up and throw away the key and Bush justified torture and many were tortured until they died. Different theater I’d say. Obama no longer justifies torture for any reason.
Obama’s theater included the US Auto industry rescue plan, the housing rescue plan, and the $789 billion economic stimulus plan.
In Obama’s theater the public can meet with federal housing insurers to refinance (the new plan can be completed in one day) a mortgage if they are having trouble paying.
Obama’s theater calls for the secret detention facilities in Eastern Europe and elsewhere to be closed. Bush/Cheney theater opened them and tortured people in them. Different scripts wouldn’t you say, Conunstradamus?
Obama’s theater includes ending the previous policy; the US now has a no torture policy and is in compliance with the Geneva Convention standards. Bush/Cheney theater trampled on and spit upon international agreements that were the supreme law of the United States. These two, Bush and Obama, seem to have studied at different schools of drama. Their theater is so different!
Obama’s theater provided better body armor to our troops. Bush didn’t give a damn, or as Rumsfeld said, “you go to war with the army you have”
Obama’s theater includes the missile defense program being cut by $1.4 billion in 2010. The Bush script never saw a defense appropriation it didn’t like and believed throwing money at a problem would solve it.
Obama’s theater includeses starting the nuclear nonproliferation talks and building back up the nuclear inspection infrastructure/protocols. Are you beginning to regret saying “DC is just theater” Conunstradamus? I giving you facts here.
Obama’s theater is more international and includes reengaging in the treaties/agreements to protect the Antarctic, reengaging in the agreements/talks on global warming and greenhouse gas emissions.
Obama’s theater is ambulatory and makes the rounds, visiting more countries and meeting with more world leaders than any president in his first six months in office. Bush didn’t even know his lines and didn’t know it is wrong to grope other actors and didn’t know to keep his hands off the shoulders of a principal German lady actress, Chancellor Angela Merkel. Obama knew enough culturally to bow at the appropriate moments to other leaders.
the successful release of US captain held by Somali pirates; Obama authorized the SEALS to do their job and increased US Navy patrols off Somali coast. Bush didn’t pay much attention to the Somali pirate actors.
Obama theater included attractive tax write-offs for those who buy hybrid automobiles, a cash for clunkers program that offered vouchers to trade in fuel inefficient, polluting old cars for new cars, stimulating auto sales.
Obama DC theater included announcing plans to purchase fuel efficient American-made fleet for the federal government. I guess that wasn’t in the Bush theater script.
Obama DC theater included expanding the SCHIP program to cover health care for 4 million more children. Maybe Bush didn’t think his DC theater needed to pay attention to the health of children.
Obama DC theater included signing national service legislation and expanding national youth services programs.
Obama DC theater included instituting a new policy on Cuba, allowing Cuban families to return home to visit loved ones. I think Bush was tone-deaf in his theatrical productions.
Obama DC theater included ending the previous policy of not regulating and labeling carbon dioxide emissions.
Obama DC theater included expanding vaccination programs.
Obama DC theater has included immediate and efficient response to the floods in North Dakota and other natural and man-made disasters, including mine safety disasters and the Gulf of Mexico BP blowout.
Obama DC theater included closing offshore tax safe havens. Very different from Bush theater. Obama negotiated a deal with Swiss banks to permit US government to gain access to records of tax evaders and criminals. Bush was a tax evader.
Obama DC theater included ending the previous policy of offering tax benefits to corporations who outsource American jobs; the new Obama policy is to promote in-sourcing to bring jobs back.
Obama DC theater included ending the previous Bush theater practice of protecting credit card companies; in place of it Obama got new consumer protections from credit card industry’s predatory practices. Another Obama theatrical hit to protect consumers from the greed of big bankers.
Obama DC theater includes mandating that energy producing plants must begin preparing to produce 15% of their energy from renewable sources.
Obama DC theater includes lower drug costs for seniors. Bush theater gave them a big and costly doughnut hole. Obama theater is giving seniors in the doughnut hole real rebate checks in 2010.
Obama DC theater included ending the previous Bush DC theater practice of forbidding Medicare from negotiating with drug manufacturers for cheaper drugs; the federal government is now realizing hundreds of millions in savings. Nice theater that can save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Obama DC theater increased pay and benefits for military personnel. Bush theater acted like they were concerned but actually mistreated troops and their families in many ways. For example, Obama’s theater improved housing for military personnel, initiated a new policy to promote federal hiring of military spouses, improved conditions at Walter Reed Military Hospital and other military hospitals. Bush theater sucked in its treatment of veterans. No comparison with Obama theater.
Obama DC theater included increasing student loans, and increasing opportunities in AmeriCorps programs.
Obama DC theater sent envoys to the Middle East and other parts of the world that had been neglected for years by Bush theater; reengaging in multilateral and bilateral talks and diplomacy which were not even in the Bush theater script.
Obama DC theater included establishing a new cyber security office and beginning the process of reforming and restructuring the military 20 years after the Cold War to a more modern fighting force; this includes new procurement policies, increasing size of military, new technology and cyber units and operations, etc. Bush theater sucked in general on anything related to military affairs.
Obama DC theater included ending previous Bush theater policy of awarding no-bid defense contracts.
Obama DC theater ordered a review of hurricane and natural disaster preparedness.
Obama DC theater established a National Performance Officer charged with saving the federal government money and making federal operations more efficient.
Obama DC theater included helping students struggling to make college loan payments to have their loans refinanced.
Obama DC theater improved benefits for veterans.
Obama DC theater instituted a new focus on mortgage fraud.
No smoking in the Obama theater lobby: the FDA is now regulating tobacco. Obama theater ended Bush theater’s previous policy of cutting the FDA and circumventing FDA rules.
Obama DC theater includes ending Bush theater’s previous practice of having White House aides rewrite scientific and environmental rules, regulations, and reports.
Bush theater would not negotiate with “terrorists”. Obama theater authorized discussions with North Korea and private mission by Pres. Bill Clinton to secure the release of two Americans held in prisons. Damn good Obama theater production that!
Obama DC theater included authorized discussions with Myanmar and mission by Sen. Jim Web to secure the release of an American held captive.
Obama DC theater included making more loans available to small businesses.
Obama DC theater includes establishing an independent commission to make recommendations on slowing the costs of Medicare.
Obama DC theater included the appointment of the first Latina to the Supreme Court.
Obama DC theater authorized construction/opening of additional health centers to care for veterans.
Obama DC theater limited salaries of senior White House aides; which were cut to $100,000. Why didn’t Bush theater do that? You getting the idea, Conunstradamus that who is directing the theater matters in what the theatrical production is?
Obama theater deployed additional troops to Afghanistan, a “war theater” Bush neglected. Bush bombed Afghanistan but focused on Iraq. Obama theater’s new Afghan War policy limits aerial bombing and prioritizes aid, development of infrastructure, diplomacy, and good government practices by Afghans.
Obama DC theater announced the long-term development of a national energy grid with renewable sources and cleaner, efficient energy production. We might hear more about this from the Obama theater speech Tuesday June 15, 2010.
Obama DC theater returned money authorized for refurbishment of White House offices and private living quarters. Quite a difference in theatrical philosophy from Bush theater. Obama paid for redecoration of White House living quarters out of his own pocket.
Obama DC theater held first Seder in White House.
Obama DC theater is attempting to reform the nation’s healthcare system which is the most expensive in the world yet leaves almost 50 million without health insurance and millions more under insured. In eight years of Bush theater there wasn’t that much concern about those 50 million American theater goers without health insurance.
Obama DC theater has put the ball in play for comprehensive immigration reform.
Obama DC theater has announced his intention to push for energy reform. I suspect we’ll hear more about that in Tuesday June 15 theater performance.
Obama DC theater has announced Obama’s intention to push for education reform.
Obama built a swing set for the girls outside the Oval Office and his wife started an organic garden.
I could go on and on and on illustrating the differences that make a difference in peoples’ lives between Bush and Obama theatrical productions, but thinking people will notice there is a difference.Informed thinking people will not make statements like “DC is just theater”

Gary Coleman would have been just as good a “First Black President”. Obama is inwardly what Gary Coleman was outwardly – a clown. Inwardly, Gary was a good man. Outwardly, Barack is a pompous clothes horse. Gary Coleman had at least one out of two, the better one (the inner) at that. Barack Obama is a master of that nothingness the Mystics have called Babylon or the “Flesh”. Alas, most men and nearly all women fall for it every time.
Note: Babylon or “the world” does not mean Nature per se or even Civilization, but only Nature corrupted and fallen civilization. And the flesh does not mean the body per se, but only the body corrupted by sin.

There could be something in what you say. After all, human are always betrayed by hubris. But also for the sake of Truth it must be said that Fascism fought against the International Bankers and the nascent Global State – the very people who brought us to this crisis.

Despite Asoka’s large lickspittle of
his like-colored hero, Mr. Obama has
become an irrelevancy.
You see, the Gulf disaster is WORSE
than Chernobyl. Basically, if you’re
night in or right around Chernobyl,
the radiation strength dimishes very
rapidly. Ocean water, on the other
hand, FLOWS. It cannot be stopped
from poisoning everything around it.
Right now, volatile organic compounds
that are breathable at 30-60 parts per
billion (like benzene) are in LA, AL,
MS, and FL to the tune of 3000+ parts
per billion. What’s worse, leakage
plumes are now to be found TWENTY
MILES from the hole. You see, when
you drill a brittle seabed, you create
microfractures all around like the
spidering out of brittle wood around
a drill hole.
This is failed “techno-triumphalism”
on a planetary scale. There are
now HUNDREDS of microleaks in addition
to the main leak. If there’s any upside
to this horrible tragedy, it consists
precisely in the raw display of what
happens to civilizations that believe
in the infallibility of incredibly
convoluted technology.
I think Obama did the correct thing
in CANCELLING *all* of the deepwater
projects. If “mistakes” like this
happened in five well-selected locations
around the world, marine life would be
totally dead in a few years. ALL marine
life.
And speaking of a few years, do not be
fooled by the attempt to put a happy
hat on “the cap”. The hundreds of
leaks surrounding the main leak will
be unplugged for YEARS. Forget about
this “it’ll be solved in August” shit.
This horrid mess has accelerated the
long emergency so that it surely looks
like its path will be shortened
considerably.
Eleuthero

That shameless plug at the end of the article was almost too much for me. May I suggest trying to cram more titles into the same sentence, plus do a nod to one of the more famous writing contests?
“One dark & stormy night, it’ll seem as if the Witch of Hebron is directing the Long Emergency to beat a path through the Geography of Nowhere to your front door in a World Made by Hand.”

Nudge, I’ve always enjoyed and learned a lot from your posts but don’t you perhaps think that it’s a little ridiculous to criticize a man who writes for a living for “plugging” his book on his own blog?
BTW, that kiddofspeed link might look like someone is just spamming but I’ve seen it and it’s a pretty fascinating look at what Chernobyl looks like today.

My understanding is that we kind of have a rule around here about cutting and pasting( and not ascribing to proper provenance) or rather, rephrasing as if it were of one’s own device(and just coming off the top of one’s head). In the cyberworld , it is considered a form of stealing.
It is easy to find versions of that list on the web with a little googling, as well as lists refuting each point.
Let’s keep it original, let’s keep it honest. You may want to think on those precepts:manifest truth- do not lie,be giving, do not steal.
We’re all in this together.

is part 2 in response to yr buddists in boulder [ or somewhere in colorado]
im pro life and vegetarian
=======================
In Denver not Boulder.
I eat anything I damn well please and Asoka says I’m pro death.
Yes, I recall the piece about 8M in the dayroom of some gloomy institution with a name like Greystone etc etc. I’ll see if I can find it. But why the interest all of a sudden?

Semper Infidel said: “Let’s keep it original, let’s keep it honest. You may want to think on those precepts:manifest truth”
Something I said wasn’t true? What, for instance?
Something I said wasn’t original? I was responding to the unoriginal comment “DC is just theater” and playing off that.
Finally, I would be very interested to read the rules. Please post a link to the clusterfuck rules.

WHO IS IN CHARGE OF DC THEATER MATTERS: BP WAS A DISASTER FORETOLD IN 2008
GEORGE W. BUSH, JULY 14, 2008: “Today, I have taken every step within my power to allow offshore exploration of the OCS.”
FOXNEWS JULY 14, 2008: Bush’s proposal echoes a call by Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, to open the Continental Shelf for exploration … The Outer Continental Shelf has been a particularly hot debate, with the Bush administration saying new drilling technology would make U.S. shores safe from environmental disaster.
SENATOR BARBARA BOXER: [chairwoman of the Senate Environment Committee] JULY 14, 2008: “The president [BUSH] is taking special-interest government to a new level and threatening our thriving coastal economy.”
CNN AUGUST 3, 2008: “Obama said Friday that he would be willing to compromise on his position against offshore oil drilling if it were part of a more overarching strategy to lower energy costs. … “What I will not do, and this has always been my position, is to support a plan that suggests this drilling is the answer to our energy problems,” Obama added.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ELECTED THE CORRECT CANDIDATE TO BE PRESIDENT IN 2008 AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS LIKE BOXER WERE CORRECT IN WARNING ABOUT OFFSHORE DRILLING.

Calm down, Asoka. Reread my post, please. The phrase “manifest truth” was referring to one putting forth material that is not one’s own as if it were one’s own.
If that is a sore spot for you, I am sorry.
I guess you are being sarcastic about posting a link to rules. I guess it’s like quoting another person, Asoka, and not saying that those words were first spoken by another. Or plagiarizing.
Some rules of human interaction are not ‘posted’, just assumed for the purposes of social discourse,like the norm of honesty. It has to be taken as a given without necessarily being explicitly entailed.
That is what I mean by “manifest truth”.
Peace.

Asia, here it is:Apparently there is no amount of derision or disdain that I can heap onto 8M that will sway him from his endless repetitive nonsense: Buses, skyscrapers, free salaries, low rents etc etc.
I envision 8M pounding out his message on an old PC in the dayroom confines of some gloomy institution like “The Greystone Asylum for the Non-Criminally Insane.”
I find myself wildly curious as to what a person such as 8M looks like … as when one is driving along the highway and another driver does something so incredibly stupid that you must rush up beside them and look quickly to the right to see what this asshole looks like.
And you, Asia, immediately replied:Indeed Lord Q, Indeed

Asoka, trying to turn this tragedy into a partisan issue is just wrong.
George H. W. Bush signed an executive order banning offshore drilling, which Clinton extended.
It was widely recognized by all that offshore drilling could be devastating to the ocean, when a leak or blowout or sinking occurred.
The Democratic congress of 2006 opened up more leases in the Gulf and the Democratic congress of 2008 let the moratorium lapse.wwf.worldwildlife.org/site/PageServer?pagename=can_results_offshore_drilling
It happened that a Halliburton crew working on a BP lease were involved when the inevitable happened. And it happened that a Democrat was in the White House.
That is all irrelevant.
What is relevant is that our oil based lifestyle is unsustainable, that digging for the last bits is devastating to our ecosystem, and that we must turn to renewable energy and downsize our “American way of life”.
Pointing fingers at scapegoats in this situation is indeed like the passengers on the Titanic fighting over who hit the iceberg, while the ship is sinking.wagelaborer.blogspot.com/2010/05/good-guys-vs-bad-guys.html

On the other hand, equating red, blue and green is also wrong.
Individual solutions are not enough to solve our society’s problems, because it is institutional decisions that frame the infrastructure that determines the behavior of most people.
Zoning laws that encourage sprawl, using tax money to fund water, sewer, electricity, cable, gaslines, etc, to make it cheaper for construction outside of towns, funding of highways and airports, instead of rail, agribusiness subsidies that throw small farmers out of business, funding a vast military to ensure US access to other people’s resources, these are all governmental decisions that shape the way we live.
Therefore, the Green Party is trying to enter government so that we can make decisions that encourage sustainable behavior.
For you to group the Greens with the Dems and the Repubs is truly ignorant.

With a sixth sense I knew instantly it had to be the same guy responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole.
Wow, that’s incredible. You instantly knew, and internalized, what was going to be pushed down your throat for the 10 years.
That’s like someone last week, who, drawing on his vast construction experience, instantly knew that fires on a few floors of 110 story steel-framed skyscrapers were going to make them collapse into their own footprints within an hour or two.
I, on the other hand, was told by a talking head on ABC news within an hour of the collapses, that the skyscrapers were attacked because “we have too much freedom, and that is going to stop”, and STILL disregarded him as an idiot, and didn’t believe that our freedoms would in any way be impacted by two buildings falling down.
If only I had instantly known that whoever that talking head was, he knew what was coming. He knew about the Patriot Act and Homeland Security. But I didn’t.
Instead, I turned off the TV in disgust and forgot all about the “attacks” until later that night.
That’s how scared I was! That’s how much “everything changed” in my opinion.
It’s all propaganda. We didn’t all love Daddy Reagan and we weren’t all afraid on 9-11, and we didn’t all support Bush when he attacked Afghanistan.

FYI – It has been rumored that Americans have an addiction to oil and and an unhealthy obsession with cars.
An oil well leaking 40,000 barrels of oil for 56 days will dump an amount of oil equivalent to 2 hrs and 45 minutes of national use.
That amount of oil leaking from an offshore well can be seen from space.
That’s not a monkey on our back. That’s a gorilla.

Ok WAGELABORER you busted me. It wasn’t exactly instant, the shock and horror left me in such a state of confusion. It took about 10 minutes for my belief to take full hold.
As for Afganistan, I thought we were going to go in get Bin Lauden ass and leave, like we were told. I did not know we were going to try and make it into the 51 st state. Those lying bastards.

Looks like the technology to safely explore for energy is a little behind our desire to drive to the mall.
As we begin our Big Slide along the other side of the apex of oil production, faults and fractures of ecology, economy, and psychology are minor potholes expected along the way.
The good old days: Climate change defined as product of burning fossil fuels. Incremental consequences suitable for good arguement and debate.
Bad old days: Climate change resulting from BP’s fossil fuel gusher into the GoM. Worst case consequences so horrific we don’t want to imagine. Debate’s over.

The USA will be ruined by it’s endless wars in the Islamic world.
This is the product of US foreign policy being held captive by Israel and its Lobby.
When will Americans wake from this nightmare and shake off the hand of Natanyahu and his criminal associates and realize this simple truth??
I fear when it does it wll be too late….and will the USA allow Israel to commit yet another mad act and bomb Iran….which will send the world economy into a terrible plunge

Yeah, the US invaded Afghanistan to get binLaden and to bring freedom to the women and to stop poppy production. And to feed all the little children.
Mission accomplished?
Here’s a video compilation of news accounts which make it very clear that binLaden was NOT a target of the US military. That he was allowed to “escape” again and again.youtube.com/watch?v=d_BS83BmTIQ

“For you to group the Greens with the Dems and the Repubs is truly ignorant.”
WTF. You made that association, not I. Besides, I used lower case and it could have been purple or brown instead of green.
“…[B]ecause it is institutional decisions that frame the infrastructure that determines the behavior of most people.” Well that is part of the problem – too many over-arching institutions with one-size-fits-all tax-payer funded “solutions” that not only don’t work but do more harm than good.
No, people need to think for themselves, understand the cluster fuck reality closing in around them like a noose and fight back. No “party” has the answer, no ideology without an agenda and there are no solutions in a sound bite.
———————————————-
No man is an island
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
John Donne
———————————————-
Yet everyday in America, we behave as if every man is an island yet think we belong to mutually beneficial organization with “our” interests at heart. HAH!

Hey, now we have an oil and water combo. Aren’t all those snake oil salesmen always trying to sell us a magic gadget that lets our cars run on water? Isn’t this the new “hydrogen economy” at work? Maybe this is all part of the plan to help us transition to hydrogen.
And no, I am not being serious. As a property owner in Panama City Beach, FL, I am terrified as to what this will do to the local economy, which I know is based on unsustainable cheap oil tourism.
I don’t buy the “peak oil doomer” theories myself, but I do understand that transportation will get more expensive regardless of what fuel source is used and that will have a long term impact on places like Bay County, FL. But I always thought it could fall back on its natural resources (ie: the ocean) if the tourism started to fall.
I guess now that tourists are cancelling left and right, and the ocean is ruined, the place is headed for disaster, along with hundreds of other gulf coast communities. Thanks BP! (Didn’t BP stand for “Beyond Petroluem” a year or two back??)

OK, I’m not clear on your point.
Are you saying that no man is an island, so we are all in this together?
Or are you saying that this colossal mess we’re in can only be solved individually?
Or what????

Google is soliciting questions about the oil ‘spill’ for the chief executive.
You can submit yours or vote up/down the already-submitted ones.
Not sure if a G account is req’d.
Link in the bottom right of the “Top Stories” section at news.google.com (Crisis Response) or directly atgoogle.com/crisisresponse/oilspill/

Is the best course of action to live your life as an example for others?
Does anyone in a car experience enlightenment from all the examples standing around at the bus stop?
Explain why wishful thinking is an effective response to modern life.

Where I live, the giant Chevy Tahoes are doing just fine, as are the other members of the giant SUV class. No one seems THAT concerned about the Gulf.
The US’s daily oil usage is about 21,000,000 barrels a day. The oil leak is about 40,000, so I can see (ironically said) why Americans don’t care that a few tar balls roll up onto the Alabama and Florida beaches. We’re in deep, and in denial.
There are about 5000 oil rigs in the Gulf, and each one can handle I’m told 4 wells. And of the 5000 rigs, about 500 are deepwater drillers. These numbers are stunning. And to think that Obama, upon taking office, sped up the lease agreements, and his MSS guy Ken Salazar did nothing to reform MSS.
Obama doesn’t care. It’s up to us to make him care. He’s as corporate at W/Cheney, and as pro oil/gas. Democrats are in denial about this of course. Enjoy your oil filled fish dinner folks.

Is this the first president to use YouTube to seek public input into an issue facing the nation?

President Obama just returned from his fourth trip to the Gulf Coast region since the BP Oil Spill began in April. Tonight at 8 p.m. EDT, he will address the nation from the Oval Office on the oil spill and his Administration’s plan to address this crisis going forward.
Immediately following the President’s address, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs will take your questions on the oil spill and the Administration’s ongoing response.
You don’t have to wait until tonight to ask your question — submit your question in video or text at YouTube.com/WhiteHouse and vote for the questions you want to see answered

I love both the Muslims and the Mexicans.
Both groups have contributed to our cultural heritage (regardless of legal status).
I welcome all Muslims and Mexicans to the United States (regardless of legal status).

Raindogs, sorry, couldn’t help that one .. but thanks for the nice feedback. Err, I’ve corresponded enough with Jim to know that he’ll probably take it in the humorous vein in which it was meant. He /does/ make a living off the book sales & lecture tour, of course.
In the meantime, I’m delighted to see the way he smiled at Kris Can in that video linked above near the top of the page. I’d love to speculate on this stuff, but so far everyone involved is not saying anything ~ not even confirmation or denial thereof. Hmm.
In the wake of BP’s shocking drilling errors leading to the oil spill they caused in the GoM, is anyone else here motivated to do even more to reduce their fossil fuel use? I’m looking at getting a bicycle of the kind you can commute to work on (in most weather anyway) and use for hauling groceries & stuff. My commute is so short that it’s not going to save much fuel, but at this point, it’s becoming a vulnerability to have too much of one’s essential needs depend on the continued flow of cheap gasoline. Let’s go do like the Europeans do, and get sensible about transportation choices.
Giant SUVs are of course the norm here right now, but that’s going to change soon enough.

“Giant SUVs are of course the norm here right now, but that’s going to change soon enough.”
Are little SUVs OK? Like a 1999 Toyota RAV4 that gets 25 mpg? Or are all SUVs/Jeeps/Trucks to be avoided because they generally get poor gas mileage?

If you are interested in an energy efficient computer, Apple came out today with a solid body MacMini ($699)
The power supply for Mac mini has been reduced from 110W to 85W and is now up to 90 percent efficient. Lower power consumption reduces energy bills and lessens the environmental impact of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. A built-in power supply means no plastic housing, less weight, and less cable clutter. It also allows Mac mini to take up 20 percent less space and fit into smaller packaging.
Mac mini is a great example of Apple’s energy-efficient design philosophy. It uses less than 10 watts of power when idle — a 25 percent reduction from the previous generation. That’s something no other desktop computer can do.
And unlike a lot of Windows-based PC systems, Mac mini uses energy-efficient hardware components that work hand in hand with the operating system to conserve power.

Oh my shiney over-under shotgun! A lean muscular and AMERICAN implement of austerity and practicality. Now with all these new Afgani minerals I’ll be able to hoard non toxic Bismuth ammunition for when the feds come around.

I think this thread is a perfect
opportunity to remind everyone
that we need to find a way to
keep the lights on in fifteen
years. I see no path to that
outside of nuclear.
Spain is the “Petri Dish” which
proves that wind and solar are
failures. First, the making,
machining, and finishing of
components for those types of
energy requires huge expenditure
of ordinary fossil fuels.
On the Oil Drum I’ve seen various
estimates about expenditures per
KWH of wind and solar. Bottom
line? Fossil fuel-based power
leads to a bill of around 9 cents
per KWH. Wind and/or solar lead
to an electricity bill of around
22 cents per KWH … around 145%
higher.
The Spanish have also discovered
that maintenance costs for wind
and solar are 2.5X that of maintaining
the fossil fuel infrastructure.
There’s also much evidence, though
the jury is still out, that the
costs of these altfuels creates
a net LOSS of jobs due to the
costs to consumers and maintainers
alike.
I don’t see how we maintain anything
like a civilized way of life with any
alternative fuel outside of nuclear.
The costs of wind and solar would be
ruinous in a bankrupt economy like
that of the USA.
Eleuthero

“I don’t see how we maintain anything
like a civilized way of life with any
alternative fuel outside of nuclear.
The costs of wind and solar would be
ruinous in a bankrupt economy like
that of the USA.” -E.
Aye, there’s the rub.
Guess what? “A civilized way of life/lifestyle/level of corpulent comfort/easy-peasy-nipponeasy will NOT be maintained. That is all…
And it is certainly to guffaw that “we’ll” have the wherewithall to build up a nuclear infrastructure. I will not contribute to such foolhardiness; I suppose I might reap the “benefits” of its’ may poisons, however. Techno-triumphalism (tm JHK) indeed!

Ps. Time for everyone to wakey-wakey. Dreamtime is over. Have a cuppa joe, while you still can; please attempt to brew it at home -just for practice. TLE has just now ground into 1st gear.
The Carter administration opened the garage door, and we’ve been warming up the engine and backing our into the road for the past 30 years or so. Now we begin the [rapidly accelerating] journey. What a looooong, strange trip it’ll be.

I love both the Muslims and the Mexicans.
=======================
Asoka’s is a socialistic kind of love. It is one with minimal criteria … so minimal, in fact, a person or a people need merely exist. It is bestowed unearned.
If Asoka were the marryin’ kind the prospective spouse might be short tall black white skinny fat smart or stupid … built like a brick shithouse or flat as an iron. Whatever your faults you’d still be loved “as a person.” It’s the “love honor and obey till death do us part” kind of love of the oft-divorced uttering the words with a straight face for the nth time.
It’s the watery love of the liberal whose phone calls all end with a perfunctory “luv ya.”
It would be a meaningless kind of love if it weren’t so harmful.

It’s nothing less than amazing to think that in my 42 years on earth, America has gone triumphantly from The Age of Great Expectations [1945 to the late 60’s] to muddling through The Great Funk [1970’s], sleepwalked through the Era Of Stagnation [1980-2001] and stumbled into The Great Emergency without once thinking about the nature of our relationship to the natural environment or questioning the doctrine of perpetual economic growth interrupted only by periodic “corrections” called recessions.

troubled times are here. take care of your family and friends, and pets.
the age of innocence is over.
time to wake up, but so many won’t.
try and steer clear of trouble, gangs, etc.
there is a general lack of respect in the world, at least my part. west coast california.
people drive like bats out of hell. so rude, and dangerous.
time to get back to the garden. it could be so simple couldn’t it ?
melinda

If you use a Windoze based pc, you can get a Nettop pc that does the same,but cost half as much as a Mac. Google Nettop pc. Many use them as a kind of media center pc. They are very small, quite, and don’t generate much heat.
Oh, did I mention they cost less than a Mac? You could get two for the price of one Mac.
Check out nettopreview.com
DJ

DJ,
The Mac mini is a 3 pound desktop, not a laptop.
The Mac mini comes with a DVD burner, 811.n wi-fi, NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM, One FireWire 800 port (up to 800 Mbps), 4 USB 2.0 USB ports, an SD card slot,320GB hard drive, audio line in/line out, a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and 2GB (two 1GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM and a 1066MHz frontside bus.
I’m sure the nettop pc costs less, but probably doesn’t have a DVD reader/burner, or the other above mentioned features. The nettop comes with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Processor, 1024 MB DDR2 Memory, 160GB Hard Drive.
If you upgrade a nettop pc processor, memory, etc. to rival the Mac mini, it would cost the same or more.
The Mac mini has no plastic components and plastic is probably what you get with a nettop pc. You get what you pay for.

Great piece!! Once again, James speaks to the heart of the matter.
Pres. Obama spoke from the Big Office talking tough and planning to sit Tony Baloney down to read him the riot act. HA HA. We could only hope. It seems Hope has been cheapened.
We are now going on nearly two months of 50K to 70K of oil spewing into the Gulf, not to mention the 3 million barrels of methane bubbling everyday, as well.
BP is an ecoterrorist allowed to run roughshod over this country as they dictated the rules as lil’dick Cheney, and LilBoyBush shook on the deal.
As Michael Ruppert repeated says, the big collapse is coming. So much is oil based: car tires, hoses, fuels, plastic wrap, toothpaste and brushes, garbage bags, fertilizers, pesticides, carpet fibers, pharmas, etc.
There is no escaping the Big Slide.http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

Another point—President Obama, this is NOT a spill!!! Stop calling it a spill. A spill is when little John knocks over his glass of milk and mama wipes it up with a rag.
This is an eruption.
We are doomed when President Obama cannot call the damn thing exactly what it is.http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

OK. So when is anything really going to happen to get the LE going? This blow-out in the gulf is having little impact other than on stock-prices and some unimportant life-forms like fish and lower-class southern residents. Will be giving tomorrow the details of the class-action law-suit against Transocean I joined today.
Geoff

As Michael Ruppert repeated says, the big collapse is coming. … There is no escaping the Big Slide.

The End is Coming! Repent! There is no escaping Judgement Day!
The Long Emergency is taking on religious qualities.
Only those who are “saved” will survive. In materialist LE terms “saved” means those with foresight to have a garden, water, guns, ammo, gold, etc.
Both spiritualism and materialism are false promises of salvation.

“For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we have talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires. Time and again, the path forward has been blocked – not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor…”
Part of tonight’s speech

Or the Gays. Was shocked by your endorsement of the Gay Agenda. Have you been asleep at the wheel for the last twenty years? They are huge players in the Minority Coalition – absolutely committed to the destruction of the White Man and his Civilization. That includes America. In fact, they are now ranked above Black Men. Last year a Black Actor had to apologize for homophobic remarks on the set of Gray’s Anatomy.
Why do you think Vampires are so big now? Gays can’t breed so they have to “make converts”. But that’s just one of the reasons they like to be around young people. They are also fired by an intense zeal to “educate”. If you think they just want their civil rights, you are much mistaken. They have a whole gnostic world view in which gender is made obsolete that they want to impose.
Lord Greystone was Tarzan’s Father. Also Greystone might be the Foundation begun by Zen Master Bernie Glassman.

Vlad said: “Gays can’t breed so they have to “make converts”. But that’s just one of the reasons they like to be around young people.”
God creates gays. It is not a disease young people can catch. The way your physiology is wired was done by God and God’s will determines whether or not you are gay.
Ain’t no “gay agenda”, ain’t no conversion possibility that can go against God’s will.

“Unimportant life forms like fish and lower class southern residents” – Aha! You have the same contempt for rural people that Mr Kunstler and his kin typically have. Liberal snobs and old money WASPS are usually a little more circumspect. You have revealed yourself.
No culture can exist without the peasant and artisan classes. Can a building exist without a first floor? Does a man condemn his own feet or stomach?

Ozone said:
“And it is certainly to guffaw that “we’ll” have
the wherewithall to build up a nuclear infrastructure. I will not contribute to such
foolhardiness; I suppose I might reap the
“benefits” of its’ may poisons, however. techno-triumphalism (tm JHK) indeed!”
If you haven’t read “The Long Emergency” then
you may not know that Jim has NOT included
nuclear in the “techno-triumphalism” category.
It’s in the “if you want ELECTRICITY then you’ve
got to put up with its dangers” category.
What’s “foolhardy” about nuclear?? The net
amount of waste is a very small fraction of
fossil fuel residues which, unlike nuclear,
poison the air and the water. One rocket
could shoot many years of worldwide nuclear
waste into deep space … it’s that small.
Even Stewart Brand of the “Whole Earth Catalog”
has reluctantly given up his opposition to
nuclear because he knows that the other
technologies either create other kinds of
poisons which are NOT easily contained or
they just don’t deliver the Kilowatt Hours.
You have to realize that the pebble-bed type
of modern nuke is NEVER going to be a Chernobyl.
Not one new nuke has the stupidity of the Soviet
reactors that lacked containment houses.
This is not to say, Mr. Ozone, that nuclear is
a “free lunch” or that it doesn’t generate horrid
poisons. You have TWO choices: nuclear or the
end of electricity from all sources in a couple
of decades except for coal which is FAR worse
than nuclear for environmental damage. Coal
is not only filthy, it releases lots of trapped
RADON GAS so … guess what … coal releases
more trapped radiation than escapes from any
modern nuke. You’d be amazed at how CLEAN
nuclear power is EXCEPT for the spent fuel.
Yes, the spent fuel is highly radioactive,
long-lived, and so on but its VOLUME is very
low. I would live near a nuke in a heartbeat.
I would NOT live near a coal-powered utility
plant. There’s a very good reason why the
coal-powered plants tend to be in the middle
of fucking nowhere while nukes are often near
suburbs.
So this is all to say that you cannot be too
choosy if you want anything like CIVILIZATION
to continue. I’m not a nuke LOVER. But I am
a civilization lover. I think nukes are simply
CLEARLY the best choices of a long list of
very suboptimum choices.
Finally, have you ever looked up nukes run with
THORIUM??? That is actually GREEN NUCLEAR POWER.
Really!!! Check it out.
Eleuthero

I guess this is all front page news – but somehow I’ve never seen any of these questions discussed.
How many other oil platforms are deployed and operating in similar fashion to the Deepwater disaster situation? Who has been dispatched to oversee and double check current management and operating guidelines?
Has any other independent investigation been made to review the area surrounding the oil leak as well as other undersea wells to verify that they not leaking as well?
What is the status of the Goldman Sachs prosecution?

Doood~ a NetTop is not the same as a NetBook, what used to be called a sub-notebook.
Check out the pc’s at this link.nettopreview.com/
I think that they are competitive with the Mac Mini. Oh, and they cost less.
Dee

“So this is all to say that you cannot be too
choosy if you want anything like CIVILIZATION
to continue. I’m not a nuke LOVER. But I am
a civilization lover. I think nukes are simply
CLEARLY the best choices of a long list of
very suboptimum choices.
Finally, have you ever looked up nukes run with
THORIUM??? That is actually GREEN NUCLEAR POWER.
Really!!! Check it out.”
-Eleuthero
I take your point[s].
However, I believe ALL the “choices” to be suboptimal (as, I think, do you).
The mining and processing of nuclear fuel consumes HUGE amounts of energy; so there’s that EROEI (or eieio ;o) )
Scaling back (massively) is gonna be reality, however you want to slice it. Things that can’t go on forever… don’t.
Thanks for the thorium nukes thang; I’ll give it a looksee.

somehow I’ve never seen any of these questions discussed.
===================
Q: How many other oil platforms are deployed and operating in similar fashion to the Deepwater disaster situation?
A: Approximately 143 depending on your definition of “similar fashion.”
Q: Who has been dispatched to oversee and double check current management and operating guidelines?
A: Leon Spinks
Q: Has any other independent investigation been made to review the area surrounding the oil leak as well as other undersea wells to verify that they not leaking as well?
A: Yes, I retrieved my old snorkeling equipment from the back of a closet and conducted a thorough investigation myself. It’s all good, clean as a whistle, they not leaking.
Q: What is the status of the Goldman Sachs prosecution?
A: It’s over. The Board all got life w/o chance of parole and Blankfine will be hung from the neck until dead this coming Friday evening. Maybe you missed it. There was a small column on pg 3 of the NYTimes business section on Sunday.

How many other oil platforms are deployed and operating in similar fashion to the Deepwater disaster situation? Who has been dispatched to oversee and double check current management and operating guidelines?
There are thousands of platforms in the Gulf, and there are several hundred that are deep water.
The real problems is the Blow Out Preventer (BOP), which failed on the DWH. If other BOPs have been modified, or are otherwise defective, then there are potentially hundreds of other DWH disasters just waiting to happen. Once installed on the well head, its VERY difficult, even next to impossible to replace.
I also read that according to a geologist, the areas that are being drilled now are also very unstable. So lets just say that is only a matter of time to the next one. And lets hope that the so-called recovery operation makes it thru the hurricane season. You do know that if a big one blows in, they will have to suspend all ops, so that will mean the DWH well head will just be spewing uncontrolled into the ocean.
Say, does ANYBODY out there driving a huge SUV feel even just a little bit guilty? Anybody?
So, come an visit Flridas beautiful Black Sand Beaches now…..
DEe

I agree that nukes provide a relatively clean alternative power source. But I wonder whether there are people qualified to run them.
Up here north of the border I’ve read a few times about university professors frustrated by first year students coming out of high school so illiterate and innumerate that they need remedial courses.
I don’t know the educational situation in the US but I wonder whether we have people in Canada with the intellectual wherewithal to master the nuclear physics/engineering to build and run nuclear plants.
All I know is what I read in the papers and what I see with my own eyes. Some of the stuff I’ve seen in the workplace is mind bending ie a twenty something accounting clerk (community college grad) that didn’t know how to calculate percentages, a twenty something university grad and chartered accountant that asked me whether Europe was a country, another that asked what coast Newfoundland is on. This is just a small sample and this is easy stuff that elementary school kids ought to know.
You have to wonder about a school system that produces such helpless ninnies.

The oil spill has so many unknowns that I think it’s going to be at the top of the headlines for quite some time. And it’s going to continue to damage the economy because anytime the govt gets involved things usually get screwed up. As for the Afghanistan news, it is awfully convenient that it was announced recently. While there may be a lot of gold and other minerals, it’s gonna take awfully long to mine those areas. So I think gold’s outlook is still pretty good, and apparently so do several people on Barron’s Roundtable like Marc Faber and Fred Hickey:goldalert.com/stories/Strategists-Advocate-Gold-Price-Exposure

It should be simple. It will be simple once again. In the mean time make your own personal garden of eden and spend as much time there as you can. Who knows what lies on the other side of the bottleneck?

CORRECTION: It was vapid, but effective. After all, after Obama’s speech last night BP agreed to place about $20 billion in escrow for spill claims.
I know, I know, to BP $20 BILLION is pocket change, but the the people affected by the oil it is real money.

Come to think of it, very few speeches net $20 BILLION for victims of an environmental disaster.
“Vapid” may have been too strong a word. The speech was disappointing, especially the ending which appealed for help from an invisible imaginary being.
But Obama is a Christian and he believes in praying to an imaginary invisible being, and so do a lot of Americans.

Asoka at 1:30AM today:The way your physiology is wired was done by God and God’s will determines whether or not you are gay.
Asoka at 12:34PM today:The speech was disappointing, especially the ending which appealed for help from an invisible imaginary being.
Asoka is large … etc.

Some folks believe God is in charge of fetal biological development’s resultant sexual orientation.
Some folks believe in fetal biological development as a natural process.
Either way nobody is choosing their biology and neither heterosexuals nor homosexuals can change how their fetal development went.
The understood introductory part of the sentence was [others believe]
I am consistent when I say I don’t believe in God and then cite the God others do believe in.

Jim, I wrote you a few years ago about my work with the elderly as an advocate with a group. During that time you wondered perhaps if the elderly wouldn’t just die off.
One of my “charges” has damage to her body’s temperature regulator in her brain. She’s 78 and had a series of strokes. Since we have had blackouts in the area which cut off the AC, I have to scramble to find ways to keep her and others like her cool. These people live in their own apartments, not senior centers.
As of right now, the hospitals are the only places with generators, and the municipal centers, but I can’t just drop them there.
This is going to be worse than we project. ~And it is coming at us with the speed of a jumbo jet.

For those of you who don’t know, Transocean is the company from whom BP leased the Deepwater Horizon rig. Well, as a trader of shares in Transocean, with 140 shares still outstanding, I received the following missive and joined the class action lawsuit noted below:
NOTICE TO PURCHASERS of TRANSOCEAN LTD. COMMON STOCK BETWEEN AUGUST 5, 2009 AND MAY 7, 2010.
Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP (“Robbins Geller”) has filed a class action on behalf of purchasers of Transocean LT. (“Transocean”) (NYSE:RIG) common stock during the period between August 5, 2009 and May 7, 2010 (the “Class Period”):
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA
THOMAS YUEN and SUMNI AHN,
Individually and on Behalf of All Others
Similary Situated,
Plaintifs
vs.
TRANSOCEAN LTD. and STEVEN L.
NEWMAN, Defendants.
No. 2:10 -cv-01467
CLASS ACTION
The complaint charges Transocean and its Cheif Executive Officer with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 in connection with the dissemination of false and misleading statements about the Company’s deficient safety protocols, recurring blowout preventer (“BOP”) problems, and its operating and safety record. Transocean is an owner and/or operator of approximately 140 mobile offshore drilling units.
The complaint alleges that in the last ten years, the defendants have been apprised of the serious hazards associated with Transocean’s use of certain BOPs on ultra-deepwater drilling engagements. Despite these warnings and defendants’ knowledge that a BOP failure would likely result in scores of fatalities and millions of gallons of oil being released into the surrounding waters, defendants opted to conceal their knowledge of these known hazards while making false and misleading statements throughout 2009 and into 2010. Then, on April 20, 2010, an explosion on Transocean’s semi-submersible drilling rig Deepwater Horizon (“Horizon”) caused a fire which resulted in the sinking of the Horizon. Eleven crew members lost their lives and seventeen others were injured. Additionally, the subsequent failure of Horizon’s safety mechanisms, including the BOP, led to a massive oil spill which covers an estimated surface area of at least 2,500 square miles. As the truth about the full extent of the disaster was absorbed by the market over the two weeks following the explosion and oil spill, Transocean shares fell $25.69 per share, closing at $66.34 per share on May 10, 2010.
If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than July 12, 2010. If you wish to discuss this action or have any questions concerning this notice or your rights or interests, please contact plaintiff’s counsel, Darren J. Robbins of Robbins Geller at 800/449-4900 or 619/231-1058, or via e-mail at djr@rgrdlaw.com before July 7, 210. If you are a member of this class, you can view a copy of the complaint as filed or join this class action online at rgrdlaw.com/cases/transocean/. Any member of the putative class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member.
ROBBINS GELLER RUDMAN & DOWD LLP
635 W. Broadway, Suite 1900
San Diego, CA 92101

Incidentally, Yellowstone is around 3000 square miles in area, so as of the date this missive was written, the spill covered nearly that much area. Rig is now down to about $47/share and was up in the $80s/share back in April. So does this qualify as a black swan.

Apropos of this week’s title, FIERCE URGENCY, there was a need yesterday for funds to pay claims for those whose livelihood has been affected by giant oil contamination.
Then Obama gave a speech last night and met with BP today.
Thanks to Obama’s intervention, the fierce urgency of now resulted in a TWENTY BILLION DOLLAR escrow fund (to be managed by the same guy who managed the 9/1l damage claims) to meet the needs of common folk in trouble.
This is a success story, is it not? I was just wondering where all the congratulations for Obama were on CFN.
So, I hereby congratulate Obama.
Job well done, Mr. President.

msnbc.msn.com/id/37717420/ns/business-us_business/
BP faces backlash from Big Oil rivals
Industry executives seek to limit damage from increased regulation
Note in particular these statements:
BP’s mistakes have been well documented in news reports and internal records, including newly released documents showing that BP made a series of money-saving shortcuts and blunders that dramatically raised the risk of losing control of the well. One engineer ominously described the drilling project as a “nightmare” just six days before the blowout in April.
Congressional investigators also found that BP was badly behind schedule and losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. The company responded by cutting corners in the well design, cementing and drilling efforts and the installation of key safety devices, investigators have concluded.

Asoka, I feel that even little SUVs that get less than 35 mpgs are bad. When we lived in SF, we never had a car, and if we needed one, we would rent it.
When we moved to SR, we bought a Civic that got 35+mpgs.
It still blows me away, here we are in the 21st century, and still driving piston IC engines from the 19th century.
Weren’t we all supposed to have flying cars, underwater cities, and vacations on the moon by now?
Oh, and nuclear power “too cheap to meter”?
Sometimes I feel like I fell asleep and woke up in Bizzaro World instead.
Anyway, have fun getting your hands muddy…
DEE

When IBM US stole (in the Biblical sense not the legal sense) the pension and retirement medical from all IBM US employees only about 1 in 1000 had the courage to say it was wrong. That is just to open their mouths not take up a gun against armed police and army. I do not expect Americans will do anything to preserve themselves from the wolves.
I think we need to think of it as evolution in action.

Yeah, ummmm….
longtime reader, longtime commenter, forgot my password for my last username.
So remind me again how you are not a complete hypocrite?
How many flights do you take a year? MATH.
each round-trip consumes about 1-year’s worth of “driving” (at 12,000 miles) gasoline.
You were never very good at MATH. The Long Emergency confirms this.
You are very good at English.
On the plus side: I like that tattoo-ed whore you have running ads on your site for peak oil. I wouldn’t touch her with Matt Simmons’peak. What meth-clinic did you find her at? What is this world coming to? Jesus. And NASCAR fans give Danica Patrick a hard time.
I’m figuring you spill the equivalent of an Exxon-Valdez every month.
I drive very little. I have my girlfriends cook for me when I’m not eating my monthly hamburger. I grow all my own vegetables. I walk.
I’ve replaced every light bulb in my house with CFLs and marked them so I know if they live up to their “9-year guarantees” and I keep the old incandescents for emergencies and as gifts for my grandchildren.
I also made a spreadsheet of the prices I paid for the CFLs and dates and shit.
Cuz I can interpret that stuff. I’m good at math.
Love,
Johnny Rico
P.S. Send me a copy of ur next novel and I will review it well. I paid full price for WMBH. You owe me.
Naw, fuckit, that would be extortion. I ain’t into that.
So, ummm wut’s um the deal? is this gonna be the next Twilight series?
Peak Oil replaces vampires for teens?
Please. Dude. You’ve had it. Invite me out to your ranch and I’ll introduce you to my Russian girlfriends.
Also… and Doom and several of your other longtime readers can confirm this… I knew for years that the schmucks running BP and the other majors were, in fact, schmucks… because I had their IP addresses visiting my blogs on a weekly basis. And I’m talking ALL the majors.
The came for my numbers. Pure and simple. I spent the time. They didn’t. You didn’t. At least they listened.
Go back and read your columns from April 22nd. How much really matters? You are horrible at prediction.
I said on Mother’s day. (And I have witnesses) that the spill was already worse than the Exxon Valdez. I got into an argument with _____, my ______, an ex_______ on the subject. He was wrong and I was 100% right. I know this because I saw him again yesterday and he is still arguing.
You are all the same. It’s your generation. The Baby-Boomers. Somebody should have called you “The Shitheads.”
The only decent ones can play guitar. The rest of you are useless or actively conspired to kill us all.
FUCK YOU

@empirestatebuliding –
“Who eats meat for breakfast?”
This was posted on your website.
Answer: I do (plus eggs, wheat toast, potatoes, and tomatoes, or however you spell those things). I got this new girlfriend who is a nutritionist and a brilliant cook so I’m having to get used to some new stuff. But the way she makes it… I’ll eat anything she puts in my mouth. She likes meat, so I still get some of that.
Guess: You suck dick for breakfast.
Question: Is that Vegetarian or Vegan dick?

@KrisCan –
Can I see your penis?
Cuz there are no titties going on there, sweetie.
I’m jus sayin. Gimme a sec. I’ll come to your website and show you some photos of girls that should be pulling their t-shirts (up, not down).
No offense… it’s just that ur marketing is all wrong.
And I did mean to call you a whore very recently. Because you are.
Just because you get no web traffic or don’t have more than three regular boyfriends doesn’t NOT make you a whore.
You are a whore because you are pimping urseff.
Get some respect for urseff and cut that shit out
Lemme see ur writing.
As in your brain. And what is in it and what it throws. That’s what interests people here. Mostly me, I guess.
Show me the thoughts, Baby!
Cuz the body is called porno and that happens somewhere else

Please.
“Peak oil doomers didn’t predict that in a desperate rush to get every last drop we’d tear a hole in the planet”
I beg to differ. Matt Savinar (LATOC) has an excellent Peak Oil primer that talks about looking for oil in “increasingly dangerous and unfriendly places”. I think 18,000 ft. beneath the Gulf of Mexico qualifies as dangerous.
…
Matt Savinar made a brief appearance here about two years ago. I told him to STFU and leave. He did. Because he did without a fight, I thank him and actually gained some respect for him.
This was not his idea. Anybody that knows anything about oil recognizes this.
BTW: 1 mile is 5280 feet, not 18,000. Unless you are talkingabout the added earth depth… okay, fine… but these are two different depths and numbers. You can’t just add them. The 2 miles under the floor is actually the easy part
…
okay, I take that back…. for now….
Just Please say something we haven’t heard like a million times before. Post something new.
Not for nothing: There are a huge percentage of the best writers (who used to write here) who have left because this place has become an absolute shithole of unmoderated comments from morons.
Additionally – a huge percentage of those awesome writers now hang out at a blog my friends run.
I will never pimp that blog. They do not run ads. It is adults only. If you talk shit or are not square on the mark, you are gone. But anyone can read. They are not like TOD, that actually bans readers (because their webmaster is so incompetent he can’t figure out the controls of the machine).
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m the ONLY person who has actually been banned from READING TOD.
Thank GOD. TOD sucks. Useless. Starting with Stuart Staniford. They do not wanna relive that one.
I’m working on an article for either exiledonline.com or The New Yorker about TOD. I have all the relevant material archived on an air-gap can

BP just needs to inform Mother Nature that it is too big to fail. Once that sinks in to Mother’s brain, BP’s problems will go away. Heck, it worked for the investment banking industry with their “little” problem with the Feds.
From my perspective, the BP fiasco in the Gulf is just a first class example of the wages of hubris. The executives in these big corporations blow smoke up each others’ rectums. Then they start to believe their own BS and think they are demi-gods. Every once in a while, reality busts in with a vengeance and destroys their reverie and turns it into a nightmare. This is happening right now for BP. Too bad. The Greek Daedalus/Icarus myth ought to be required reading for these arrogant bastards.

Ozone: You may be losing it, but I sure like the way you are relating it!
Scarlet: I assume from your slanted comments that you have seen the other side of the bottleneck? I have too, and it’s a very pleasant mindfuck.
UnkaChester: No one gives a shit about TransOcean. Anyone who can talk about stock devaluations in the midst of the worst enviro-disaster in history is sick in the head. Enjoy the death throes of your “civilization.”

Is it wrong of me to be losing interest in offering advice on self-reliance and low-tech solutions? I come here to see what a collective of fairly attentive folks are thinking, and all it does is scare the hell out of me. Sometimes I just want to plant fruit and spread compost and commune with Nature, and say to hell with the rest of you. No blog, no comments, no encouragement. In fact I think I’d prefer if about 90% of us just went the way of Vaudeville. I’m sure the planet would prefer that to.
I bet the surviving 10% will be the people we never hear from.

Dovey, I hope your mother is OK. You were going to stop by Small Batch Garden yesterday on your way back to Atlanta and I haven’t heard from you. Texted, left a phone message, but nothing.
Everything cool?

Oh happy day … the charming Jennie Rico – and her (imagined) entourage of friends* – has returned to capture our hearts once again with her unique personality.
* awesome writers now hang out at a blog my friends runI got this new girlfriend who is a nutritionistI’ll introduce you to my Russian girlfriends.I have my girlfriends cook for meI’m working on an article for either exiledonline.com or The New Yorker. Milk just squirted out of my nose. When Jennie Rico gets an article published in The New Yorker it will signal the end of all print media.
In my year at this blog no commenter has ever displayed such an insecure and pathetic need to convince us that he or she actually has friends.

Hello, hello.
Actually, it is the other way around. People do not care about the “environment”, health, or safety. They care about accumulating money, driving too fast regardless of the circumstances, and sitting around watching television, and stuffing their fat faces with poisonous sweet-tasting chemicals, specifically sweetened fried fat-sicles.
Anyway, what people are really concerned about is how this spill could lead to a threat to the money being given to the oil companies. BP must be protected, not the fishing and tourist industries. The oil drilling activity has been heading into deep-water offshore wells. The reactions to this blow-out threatens the profitability of those ventures. I suspect the upshot of this event will be to strengthen the nationalized oil interests at the expense of the majors, BP, Exxon, Shell, Chevron-Texaco, and Conaco-Phillips, and the big off-shore drillers like Transocean, Noble Corporation, Diamond Offshore, Atwood Oceanics, Ensco, and others.
Geoff
Sacramento, California

BP’s other spill
I checked Greg Palast ‘s entry today to find out about BP’s Alaska pipeline spill written May 28 2010!!
Smart Pig:?BP’s OTHER Spillgregpalast.com/
“With the Gulf Coast dying of oil poisoning, there’s no space in the press for British Petroleum’s latest spill, just this week: over 100,000 gallons, at its Alaska pipeline operation. A hundred thousand used to be a lot. Still is.”
This article also describes the way BP handles whistle blowers and how they get away with shoddy maintenance of corroding infrastructure. That they use former CIA operatives against people who want to expose them.
2nd reference to check out on Life after the oil crash there’s an article:
Wired: BP Hiring Mercenaries from Wackenhut to Guard Oil Spill HQ
Third reference I want to share is Michael Hudson on “Guns and Butter” really worth listening to and speaks to JHK’s discussion on the European situation.kpfa.org/archive/id/61891

Folks here may be interested that the Tea Party movement was tied to the Republican’s “Drill Here! Drill Now!” campaign. Koch Industries was running the Tea Party’s show. Incidentally, just as the Democrats were running scared about doing anything to limit corporate priviledges, the Republicans are too gutless to openly espouse white power and so go along with the phony egalitarianism of so-called liberals.
This link is on lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/BreakingNews.html
It is worth reading the article in full:exiledonline.com/teagagged-tea-party-protest-silenced-over-organizers-links-to-2008-drill-here-drill…
Tea Party / June 13, 2010
Teagagged! Born In Offshore Drilling, Tea Party Protest Silenced Over Organizers’ Links To 2008 “Drill Here! Drill Now!” Campaign
By Mark Ames and Yasha Levine
Missing: Tea Party
This article was first published in Alternet.
Why are the hoppin’-mad Teabaggers so oddly quiet these days, ever since the BP oil disaster? That’s what Thomas Frank, author of What’s The Matter With Kansas? asked last week in his column, “Laissez-faire Meets The Oil Spill.” Ideologically, it’s painfully obvious why the Teabaggers are now the Teagaggers: their free-market gospel got mugged by oil-drenched reality — a reality so horrific that even pollster Frank Luntz couldn’t spin the BP disaster as the government’s fault. Best to just shut up when you’re that wrong.
But there’s another, more concrete reason why the Tea Party revolutionaries melted back into their suburbs as soon as the enormity of the Gulf spill disaster hit: The Tea Party evolved out of the pro-offshore drilling astroturf movement in 2008. They even share some of the same organizers and front groups, from PR operative like Eric Odom, to advocacy groups like FreedomWorks, whose combined efforts on the “Drill Here! Drill now!” astroturf campaign succeeded in opening up all of America’s coastlines and waters to offshore drilling, overturning a 27-year ban thanks to threats of “a Boston-style Tea Party,” as one Republican put it in the summer of 2008.
We have been following this movement from the beginning. Back in February 2009, on the eve of the first Tea Party protest, we published the first investigative article exposing the hidden relationship between the fake-”spontaneous” Tea Party protests that month, and the Republican machine that backed and promoted the campaign. Our research led again and again to the right-wing Koch brothers, who are worth a combined $32 billion as owners of the largest private oil company in America, Koch Industries. Koch-linked front groups like FreedomWorks and the Sam Adams Alliance (named after the leader of the original Boston Tea Party) played key roles in both the 2008 campaign to deregulate offshore drilling, and in the Tea Party movement.
Eric Odom, the PR flak who launched the Tea Party in February 2009, is the same Eric Odom who in August 2008 organized Republican Twitter-mobs who crashed Capitol Hill chanting “Drill here! Drill now!” to force Congress to open up American coastlines to unrestricted offshore oil drilling. Odom used the same Twitter front group, “DontGo Movement,” in both campaigns: Twittering the pro-offshore drilling mobs in 2008 and Twittering the first anti-Obama teabaggers in early 2009. Odom was listed as the “New Media Coordinator” for the Sam Adams Alliance until a few days before the very Tea Party Protest in 2009.
freedomworks-drill-now
If these organization names get confusing, then just remember this: What really matters is the money behind them — namely, the billionaire Koch money. Since we first broke the Koch-Tea Party links, other media and research outlets have confirmed the Kochs’ key funding and organization role in the Tea Party campaign, as well as defeating climate change legislation and defeating health care reform. The Kochs are the largest oil & gas contributors to the last few electoral campaigns, and their network of fronts and think tanks is daunting.
One Koch-linked front group is The Sam Adams Alliance, led by a longtime Koch aide named Eric O’Keefe. Back in 1980, when David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian Party ticket, Eric O’Keefe served as the National Coordinator for Koch’s Libertarian Party. O’Keefe has been sucking on the Koch teat ever since — moving from the Libertarian Party to the Koch-funded Cato Institute, and finally, to the Sam Adams Alliance, where O’Keefe is the CEO.
At first the Kochs denied they were behind the Tea Party campaign, but by the end of 2009, David Koch finally owned up and told an audience how he had planned and funded the Tea Party movement.
It’s important to understand just how close the Tea Party campaign is tied to the campaign pushing for unlimited offshore drilling, because the media has consistently misunderstood and misrepresented the Tea Party movement at every step of the way, treating the Tea Party like a legitimate political movement, rather than what it really is: a well-funded and highly-manipulative PR campaign, paid for and led by right-wing billionaires looking to protect their riches from government regulators and taxes. The Tea Party only exists as long as the Kochs need it to run; once the billionaires’ needs change, they’ll close the account out and get onto other business, dumping all the suckers who volunteered their time and Ayn Rand-inspired placards until they’re needed again sometime in the future.
koch-funding-lobbying1
To understand how this works, let’s go back again to the summer of 2008, the last time there were still restrictions on offshore oil drilling in America. How did it happen that we lifted all offshore drilling restrictions less than two years ago? Strange to believe now, but two summers ago, drilling became the “wedge issue” for the presidential campaign, the way gay marriage was in 2004. In August 2008, for reasons unclear at the time, nothing got the Republican base more quickly worked up for a fight than the fight to open up all of America’s coasts and waters to all the drilling that Big Oil wanted.
Before it turned Tea Party, the pro-offshore drilling campaign was led by the disgraced Newt Gingrich, via his billionaire-sponsored foundation, American Solutions. It was a pretty typical lobbying effort until August 1, when the Republicans seemed to go off the handle, and a bunch of DC Beltway foundation trolls took to the streets threatening tea party revolt.
By mid-August 2008, the Wall Street Journal asked, “Why Does Offshore Drilling Dominate the Debate?”:
How on earth, in the middle of a war and an economic slowdown, did a handful of offshore oil rigs come to be the wedge issue of American politics?
And make no mistake–new oil drilling is the wedge. Republicans have shown 80-90% support for any drilling proposal; Democrats are equally opposed. Bob Herbert in the NYT compares drilling’s wool-over-the-eyes allure to the persistent belief in Iraqi involvement in Sept. 11. Offshore drilling has resuscitated [sic] Newt Gingrich, and ruined Nancy Pelosi’s summer. It made Sen. Barack Obama, the “agent of change,” change his mind. And it derailed the Straight Talk Express.
Suddenly, the entire election hinged on offshore drilling, and the Democrats got it in their heads that if they didn’t compromise, they’d lose the 2008 election. It must have seemed strange to them — the Republicans dragged America into two military defeats back-to-back, and left the economy destroyed on a scale not seen in almost a century. But the Democrats were scared as they usually are, and by the end of September, both the House and Senate voted to lift the ban on offshore drilling for gas and oil.
Mike Huckabee jams to “Drill Here Drill Now” with Aaron Tippin
The last part of the campaign happened so fast, it seemed plausibly spontaneous and grassroots. Before Odom and the Twitter mobs, the push for offshore drilling was much more traditional: several months of Newt Gingrich’s backroom efforts and mailers and ads pushing for offshore oil drilling. And then came the surprise: On August 1, 2008, Republicans staged a publicity stunt to take over the floor of the House just a few hours after lawmakers had voted to adjourn for their five-week summer break. The Republicans said they were protesting Speaker Pelosi’s decision to go home without voting on offshore drilling.
According to an AP report from the time:
Republicans occupied the House floor for a rare, and at times bizarre, protest against Democratic energy policies.
Unlike a normal session where the rules of decorum are strictly enforced, GOP lawmakers and their aides who filled the chamber clapped, chanted, gave standing ovations and booed the Democrats.
In a grand finale, lawmakers led a roomful of aides in a rendition of “God Bless America” and walked off to chants of “USA, USA.”
The event, said Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona, one of the organizers with Reps. Mike Pence of Indiana and Tom Price of Georgia, was “the equivalent of the Boston Tea Party over the energy issue.”
Republicans are angry that Democrats blocked them from a vote on allowing more offshore oil drilling and increasing domestic oil supplies.
This was the launch of the first Tea Party. And a key figure in the August campaign was Eric Odom, new media coordinator from the Koch-affiliated Sam Adams Alliance. Odom also used DontGo Movement to twitter together “grassroots” supporters to back the Republican sit-in on August 1.
Odom’s job was to make it look like a spontaneous outburst of middle-class support was joining forces with the Republican politicians in Congress, who fused together in one great oil-drilling movement. This way it would appear to out-of-touch Democrats that the pro-oil-drilling movement was really catching on with regular Americans angry at high gas prices, which they blamed on liberal eco-elitists in Washington, rather than on Bush’s two lost wars, and the trashed American economy.
Twittering was new at the time; and Odom’s twitter-campaign worked better than anyone could have expected. He launched his DontGo Movement on August 1, and a few days later, it was already on CNN:
Conservative online activists launch ‘DontGo’ Web site
Posted: August 5th, 2008
(CNN) – A group of conservative online activists launched a new Web site Tuesday to support a call by House Republicans to reconvene Congress and vote on an energy bill.
The site, dontgomovement.com, is intended to be a clearinghouse for information about a protest House Republicans began Friday soon after Congress adjourned for its August recess. More than 1100 people have signed up for an e-mail distribution list associated with the site since a preliminary splash page for it went up on the Internet Monday, according to Eric Odom, one of the organizers behind dontgomovement.com.
From there, more Koch-connected groups piled in, including FreedomWorks, the lead Tea Party organizers. In early August, FreedomWorks employees hit the Washington streets carrying signs reading, “Drill! Drill! Drill!” telling reporters “that most Americans support expanded domestic drilling.”
Nan Swift, Campaign Coordinator for FreedomWorks, was so psyched about protesting for offshore oil drilling that day that she quickly posted a “stay tuned!” announcement on the FreedomWorks site:
GAS PRICE PROTEST PROTEST
By Nan Swift on Aug 06, 2008
On Tuesday FreedomWorks joined with area allies to counter MoveOn’s demonstration for an “Oil-Free Presidency.” Try Economy-Free. At any rate, the whole write-up will be on up over at FreedomWorks.org soon as part of our weekly campaign update. In the meantime, I wanted to make sure you got to see these great links to other people who wrote, took pictures, and great video. Enjoy.
By late September, the pressure was too much for Pelosi to bear, and Congress caved to Nan Swift’s ”Drill! Drill!” protest.
The triumphant story of how the GOP forced Congress to “Drill Here! Drill Now!”
The campaign was a boon to Eric Odom and to FreedomWorks and gave them the know-how to run the bigger Tea Party campaign later. Gingrich the public face of the “Drill Here Drill Now!” campaign, was the only figure in that campaign who got mugged by reality: on September 23, 2008 — the same day Gingrich published his pro-offshore drilling manifesto Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less — Republican heavyweights led by Vice President Dick Cheney were marching around Capitol Hill scaring members into passing a bill far more urgent than the offshore drilling bill championed by Newt, FreedomWorks, and the Koch brothers: the $700 billion Bush Bailout bill. Just to refresh your memory, here’s a quick excerpt from the Wall Street Journal that day:
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said top administration officials – Vice President Dick Cheney, White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and National Economic Council Director Keith Hennessey – were lobbying members of Congress Tuesday, including the House of Representative’s conservative Republican Study Group.
The economic collapse and Bush-Cheney billionaire bailouts put Gingrich’s big comeback on hold. But ironically enough, the Bush-Cheney bailouts provided Bush-Cheney supporters something new to protest in 2009: the Bush-Cheney bailouts now that President Obama claimed them as his own, and piled trillions more of his own bailouts on top of it.
For some reason, the story of how the Tea Party began as the Offshore-Drilling Party has been forgotten or ignored by the media. But the people inside the movement sure know where the Tea Party started, and until the BP disaster, they were damn proud. For example, a leader of the St. Louis Tea Party, Dana Loesch — known as the “female Michael Savage” by her Tea Party admirers – triumphantly recounted the oil-drilling beginnings of the Tea Party movement last year on Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government site:
The Tea Party Movement: How We Got Here
by Dana Loesch
Something curious happened during the summer of 2008. Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, shut down the House and C-SPAN cameras with a resolution that passed by just one vote, smack in the middle of an energy crisis. Afterwards, Madame Speaker jetted off on a week-long book tour while gas prices soared.
The Republicans stood in the dark and refused to leave. A few officials, including John Culberson, took out their phones and began Twittering the action to America, this spawning the #dontgo movement. It was the first nudge to the hibernating conservative constituency who were excited about having something over which to be excited in their party. Netroots activists seethed at the realization that Democrats left America in limbo rather than vote against reducing energy costs and drilling stateside – though the majority of the population approved of such. They rallied around the legislators that had the brass to stay and urged them to “Don’t go!”
Taxpayer fury over these offenses grew to a shriek in February when Rick Santelli delivered his famous diatribe on the floor of the Chicago exchange. The feelings of angry disenfranchisement felt by so many conservatives coalesced following Santelli’s speech.
On February 19, 2009, the DontGo Movement morphed into the Tea Party thanks to the “Tea Party Rant” by CNBC’s Rick Santelli, a self-described follower of Ayn Rand, who suffered a spaz attack on live television after hearing that President Obama was proposing bailout funds to non-billionaire Americans facing foreclosure. Santelli was fine with the trillions in bailout funds wired to the Wall Street Galts whose shoes he shines for a living. But when Obama offered a bailout of $75 billion in mortgage relief to middle-class Americans, Santelli had a freak-out. Standing in the Chicago exchange floor with all of his derivatives-trading pals, the CNBC tool shouted that he and his casino traders were “fed up” and called for a “Chicago Tea Party” to protest the federal government’s bailout of struggling homeowners. “This is America!” Santelli screamed, pointing to his rich derivatives-trading broker friends — who trade the same derivatives that brought down the American economy and pushed millions of Americans into foreclosure.
At the time, we called into question the “spontaneity” of Santelli’s rant, seeing instead a typical “launch event” in a coordinated PR campaign designed to look spontaneous. We also wrote about all the links between Santelli’s rant, the fan-sites that popped up registered to various Republican fronts including Eric Odom, and further up the chain, familiar Republican free-market operatives, from Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks to the Sam Adams Alliance, and Eric Odom’s Twittering DontGo front. Many of the instantly-activated sites promoting Santelli’s rant that we traced were registered in Chicago — where Santelli, Eric Odom, and the Sam Adams Alliance were all based. Within days of our expose, Santelli was forced to post an excruciating apology to President Obama on CNBC’s, site, and he canceled his appearance on the Jon Stewart Show. He’s kept his tea to himself ever since.
The money link between the campaign for offshore drilling and the Tea Party campaign was the billionaire Koch brothers and their private oil behemoth, Koch Industries, America’s second-largest private company and one of the country’s worst oil polluters.
The Kochs had good reason to back both offshore drilling and the Tea Party movement, and then want to hush it all up after the BP spill: that’s because Koch Industries has a history of horrific oil spills right here in America.
Greenpeace recently published a list of Koch Industries disasters, which reads like a crime dossier on deregulation. Last year, for example, a Koch subsidiary was ordered to pay out half a billion dollars to fix environmental violations; while a decade ago, in 2000, Koch was fined for causing 300 spills and charted with releasing 91 tons of a known carcinogen from a Texas Refinery, leading to a $350 million fine (which Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft discounted down to $20 million). And just a few weeks ago, the Dallas Morning News reported that the EPA took over the licensing process from Texas for a Koch refinery, which is accused of gross violations of the Clean Air Act.
So let’s go over this again: Not only was the Tea Party movement supported by oil industry money, especially Koch Industries, but it was organized by the same people who Tea Partied Congress into opening up America’s coastline to unlimited oil drilling. The Tea Party did that — they manipulated and frightened Washington into giving them all the pristine American coastline that a billionaire could ever dream of poisoning, and then some. On top of that, the free-market advocacy groups at the center of the Tea Party movement are responsible for the systematic destruction of government regulation, which made a disaster like the Gulf spill inevitable.
So remember that when you look at the poisoned Gulf of Mexico, and the ruined beaches of Florida: That’s the Tea Party Vision turned into our reality. The gang running the Tea Party movement has some direct responsibility for the catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, maybe more so than BP itself. No wonder the Tea Party crowd is staying out of sight and hoping everyone’s forgotten. They’ve been talking about dumping tea, but all along they’ve been dumping oil, and now we’re finding out just how “maverick” and “anti-establishment” their movement really is.
Keep this in mind the next time the mainstream media sucks up to the Teabaggers as some sort of “authentic America” anti-establishment movement: it was born in offshore oil drilling, and America is now dying from offshore drilling.
This article was first published in Alternet.
Mark Ames is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion from Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine.
Click the cover & buy the book!
Yasha Levine is a mobile home inhabitin’ editor of The eXiled. He is currently stationed in Victorville, CA. You can reach him at levine [at] exiledonline.com.
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Anyway, Trip and others, just consider this.
Look at the huge efforts being made to keep the money flowing to the oil company executives and the tremendous demand that people have to constantly be driving their fat corn-syrup-enhanced assess around in their super-sized vehicles long distances. Also look at how the government backs real estate speculation and suburban sprawl. Also think about how you retreat-house perma-steaders are marginalized, mocked, and ignored. Why don’t you try making the smallest local changes, like pushing for clothes-lines instead of having people use clothes-driers, and discouraging every tiny parcel of land from being fenced off and allowing 3-story houses to be built?
Geoff

Sin means to miss the mark. A person given over to lust is missing the mark. And lust is of the mind far more than it is a bodily instinct. If an attractive person walk into view, it is fine to admire them. But to go out of your way to see them, crane the neck and swallow the camel – that is lust because it is no longer instinctive but planned. As Mohammad said, you are permitted one look but not two.
And even what is natural must be reigned in since we are not animals. We particularly mustn’t give into lusting after inappropriate people, such as those who are married or of of another race. Getting jungle fever is the worst thing that can happen to a White Nationalist.

Nice distinction. Who says radiation is bad anyway? Might it not be the engine of evolution? Instead of waiting for the tropical sun or the coming solar storm (which will knock out virtually all of our electronics – but at least I’ll get to see the Northern Lights), let’s take evolution into our own hands and radiate ourselves. One enterprising person kept their microwave on 24/7, door open by the window – aimed at their neighbor/enemy.

How bout those geniuses with the plastic horns? Typical Black Behavior: make lots of noise and if someone doesn’t like it, make even more.
As far as Canada goes – it is finished just like the US. Smart Whites don’t breed – gets in the way of saving money for vacations. And this prosperity bug does seem to be universal – at least for those races who have been infected by us. The Chinese of Singapore and the Japanese are just as bad. As are the Westernized Jews both here and in Isreal. The Palestinians are going to win in the end therefore.
The “Greatest Generation” and the Baby Boomers dropped the ball – the Ball of Western Civilization.

What are you doing here? Weren’t you supposed to go off into the sunset with Dale?
I take to heart your advice about women, Dee. I bought a crash helmet for when I get thrown up to the roof of the trailer. Now I just have to find my young Brunhilde. Thanks coach.

Well, my mother is largely Askanazi Jewish and the rest of her background is mostly Russian, my brother was measured to have an iq of 158, and mine was found to be at least 146 but with no ceiling. My third-grade son, who has a Taiwanese mother, is reading at the 10th grade level and I have a daughter on the way. Her mother is German, Czecho-Slovackian, Lithuanian, and Polish. Is that smart and white enough for you? Email me at gharris938@aol.com and silmarilion123 @yahoo.com and we can talk about setting up a tribal confederacy. If you want a white homeland, talk to the Russians. I also met the great nephew Hyde of a former president of Ireland last Friday.
Lates.
Geoff

Cash wrote:
“I agree that nukes provide a relatively clean alternative power source. But I wonder whether there are people qualified to run them.
Up here north of the border I’ve read a few times about university professors frustrated by first year students coming out of high school so illiterate and innumerate that they need remedial courses.
I don’t know the educational situation in the US but I wonder whether we have people in Canada with the intellectual wherewithal to master the nuclear physics/engineering to build and run nuclear plants. ”
I cannot disagree with your Canadian professor
colleagues. Indeed, I wonder if ANY aspect of
North American infrastructure is going to have
enough people of conscience, capability, and
character to run electricity grids, nuke plants,
or even to put rivets on cars on an assembly line.
I’m a prof in California which my friends from
Washington state call “The Land of Stupid”. On
the occasions when I meet friends for drinks at
a pub, my sense is that the average 25-year-old
in 2010 has the behavioral nuances of a 13-year-
old in 1975. I mean, why do they talk so LOUD??
We didn’t SCREAM at each other when I was 25.
Why does “fuck” need to be in every sentence or
used as a placeholder instead of “um” or “er”?
Why are there so many 30-year-olds who’ve never
spent more than 6 months at a shot outside of
Mommy’s house??
I didn’t realize that the stupid/vulgar virus
had spread north of the border. Sigh.
E.

Vlad,
Have you ever seen “Repo Man”?? Funny
flick but the guy who played the physicist
nutter with one lens knocked out of his
glasses said: “Radiation is GOOD for
people!! We should all get 200 chest
X-rays every year!!!”.
Funny post, Vlad. Just remember my motto
for the nuke industry: “Glow with the flow”.
In any case, nuclear just seems like a sad
“last resort” but it could be made a heck
of a lot safer with Thorium-based nukes.
We need to keep those lights on somehow!!
E.

Quit fucking around. Where’s Dee Dee? Put’er on. How’s the Pyramid comin’?
I agree with what you said about my lack of form the other week. I guess I was so intent on convincing Diogen that I didn’t care. Apparently Europeans have become like Americans: deduction from principles just doesn’t cut it. You have to give them hot button examples.
I found your joke about God sitting on a toilet grossly offensive. Pure blasphemy. Some things just should not be said. For that, you will be judged. Your only hope is to preach against Israel to gain some pious credits.

You have to try and be more tolerant. We’re not your flock after all. Most of us do not accept you as our absolute authority about absolutely everything. Sorry dude. Radical Ecology has become a religion – and it’s a false one. The Earth is the Lord’s and fullness thereof – you reverse it and think the Earth is the Lord or the Goddess. In a generation or two, your followers will be sacraficing virgins to appease her. After all, she bleeds and needs to be replenished.

from Jeremiah 17, one which I HOPE to follow:
19Thus said the LORD unto me; Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, whereby the kings of Judah come in, and by the which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem;
20And say unto them, Hear ye the word of the LORD, ye kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates:
21Thus saith the LORD; Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem;
22Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.
23But they obeyed not, neither inclined their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, nor receive instruction.
24And it shall come to pass, if ye diligently hearken unto me, saith the LORD, to bring in no burden through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, but hallow the sabbath day, to do no work therein;
25Then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their princes, the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: and this city shall remain for ever.
26And they shall come from the cities of Judah, and from the places about Jerusalem, and from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south, bringing burnt offerings, and sacrifices, and meat offerings, and incense, and bringing sacrifices of praise, unto the house of the LORD.
27But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.

So now you admit consistency is valid and perhaps even important? More inconsistency – but a good one is this case. This fits Emerson’s dictim that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
Keep on him Q – he’s weakening.

It’s the Truth. Man is nothing in and of himself. He is the only One who can really say “I Am”. And He did! And does still to those who listen. We are just “accidents”. Derrivatives. We need not have been. We owe him everything; not just our house, our spouse, and our dog – but our very being. How can we not offer up thanksgiving and praise? But instead we covet the fruits of our own labor – and worship the cunning works of our own mind such as the computer. And high IQ people are the worst typically because the most proud.

Oh I get it now – you are an IQ enthusiast irregardless of race. One of the Vdare crowd who specialize in East Asian women. It’s a valid approach to life I grant you even though I choose another way. It’s not White enough for me. The old saying goes – you’re only White if your grandchildren are White. If we were going to colonize another world, I’d say do it that way. But as for this world, I’d like to see the races stay intact, at least my own. Moreover, even in terms of your scientific viewpoint, there is value in maintaining genetic diversity.
Now I know that many liberal Jews seem to have the same outlook of valuing IQ where ever it’s found. But the problem is that they retain their ethnic allegiance even if they don’t care to live that way themselves. So you have Jewish guys married to Whites or Asians who support the agenda of the Zionists who want to miscegenate Whites out of existence. Someone fifty years ago could call that science fiction, but no longer. It’s happening all over the White World. It’s not natural and it’s completely evil. And of course they are helped by the bizarre self hatred of Whites – which they and their Masonic fellow travelers have lovingly developed and nurtured via the schools, churches, and advertising industry.
If Whites were overrun here and there, I’d say nothing. Like Southern Florida or Hawaii. That would be natural. But what has happened and is happening is far, far more than that. It’s now in every White Country including Finland and Iceland. I have no objection to races sharing some places. It’s natural where two cultures meet for there to be a borderland or an “interzone”. Such places are exciting and good for business and tourism. But they intend to make every White Land into such interzones. This we will never accept and it means war in the long run.
Anyway, thanks for the clarification. I will lay off you now that I know your position. But think about what I’ve said. Are you retaining allegiance? Your attitudes might indicate as much. Again, I respect the high IQ paradigm, but there is more to life. Mensans are famously politically correct. A High IQ does not automatically confer wisdom – or creativity. And yes, Whites desperately need some long term Eugenics. We have centuries of Catholic Monasticism and more recent Protestant sterility to overcome.

Words by Robert Hunter; music by Jerry Garcia
Well, the first days are the hardest days,
don’t you worry anymore
When life looks like Easy Street
there is danger at your door
Think this through with me
Let me know your mind
Wo-oah, what I want to know
is are you kind?

Bingo. Repo Man was my inspiration. And I agree: nuclear is the only way to go now – even though it’s late in the game as Mr Kunstler says. Your earlier post was frightening – the part about the fissures and ocean floor being like rotten wood. Why were we never told about this incredible danger? No one is using reason. No one is really listening to each other. This oil field is huge: it could have been drilled in shallow water but the environmentalists wouldn’t have it. So it was drilled where it could not be fixed.
What do you think of the Electro Magnetic Pulse? I’ve heard that the old Soviets had a plan to take America apart with about a dozen air bursts of these specially doctored warheads – each one would destroy the grid for hundreds of square miles. The ultimate loss of life would be much higher than a conventional massive strike. Famine and disease. The effect was noticed at Los Alamos; how the blast disrupted radio and transmissions. They worked on intensifying the effect. The blast high up causes a cascade of sub atomic particles that do not damadge bodies but wreak havoc on transitor technology. Again the irony: the old vacuum tube technology would have been immune to this. And worse yet: the coming solar storms can do similar damadge. We are wide open to any and all such attacks whether by Man or Nature. As the daughter of Reverend Phelps said about Deepwater Horizon, “Godsmack!”
Who knows? The Russians may still have this plan intact. I imagine we have a similar one for them – although their size helps them a bit there.

As a teacher of computer science, I
was sick of “techno-triumphalism” even
before JHK invented the term. The
founders of Cybernetics: Turing,
Wiener, and Bertolanffy wrote books
decrying gadget worshipping. They
said that the purpose of computers
was to FREE people from machines.
Yet in the mid-1990s I saw how
computers were leading to a waste
of paper (companies spamming your
snail mail box is done courtesy of
computers), profusion of toxic waste
because all these “personal” computers
can only be disposed of in HAZ MAT
DUMPS.
History teachers were bragging in
1995 that they were already on their
seventh or eighth computer. Then
came the tragicomedy of text messaging,
laptops in public, the Ipad, etc..
Digital computers, as historian
Theodore Roszak said, “Are useful
servants of man when dressed up in
work clothes”. They are for running
machines, crunching numbers for
scientists and engineers, and
doing boring business calculations.
Now, we appear to think that they
can manage business RELATIONSHIPS,
enhance our human relationships
(yeah, for the worse), “entertain”
us (thus making them ERSATZ TVs),
and we actually believe that vital
data (our bank, brokerage, and other
accounts) are secure though most
humans are TERRIBLE programmers.
I’ve been teaching programming in
one form or another for 31 years
(21 in a college, 10 in a research
institute) and the average industrial
programmer is a “D” grade programmer.
Programming, had it not gotten
prematurely tied to MONEY, would
still be like it was in the 1970s and
1980s … done ONLY by people with
IQs comparable to mathematicians or
physicists.
I view the entry of computers into
the mainstream of life as the most
Pyrrhic Victory of modern times
matched, perhaps, only by radical
feminism. It’s hard to say which
has eroded families and communities
more.
But the worse thing is our naive
FAITH in them just like the naive
faith we’ve put in overly complex
technologies like deep sea oil
drilling, the arrogance of GMO
Frankenfoods, and our belief in
“adjusting” our minds with the
psych meds of Big Pharma.
Think about it. If you know N
people fairly intimately, I’ll
bet that at LEAST one in two is
on Ambien, an SSRI antidepressant,
something to control “illnesses”
like shyness (which has been
clinicalized into “social anxiety
disorder”), or off-label uses of
antipsychotics like Seroquel for
sleep (which is like cracking open
a peanut with a steamroller).
In virtually all areas of life, our
unquestioning belief in the products
of science-tied-to-big-business has
created ten problems for each problem
solved. Money corrupts many things
but when it’s tied to science, the
science is inevitably bad because
it is RUSHED and the quality of the
studies is, to understate the matter,
fatally flawed.
E.

In all topics and news, everything is exaggerated, everything seems like a fundamental “change” or “crisis” when in reality it is just a small blip on the radar, just business as usual. I read that “Greece failed”, the “euro is worthless”, etc. just to give you two examples: nothing farther from the truth, greece is “ok now” and the euro is gaining against the dollar again.
And so it is with all news items, and 99% of all events that happen: it all appears so important and new and such a crisis, it usually just fixes itself up or becomes last page news after a few months: who even knew there was a major oil spill in the gulf in 1979 ? whatever happened to the major flu of last year ? etc. etc. The examples are infinite.
On a side note: there are a lot of political reasons, a lot of hidden agendas to inflate the importance of some news: the twin tower attacks of 9/11/2001 was just a blip, just 20 crackpots that got their job done: if this was virtually ignored by the US news and world news, we wouldn’t have had the war in afghan or irak, maybe…
News is always an “invention of news”, a “command language” , commanding what must be done or what agenda to follow or what political change to inact, etc. Why so much information anyways ? Why must we know and even care about a million issues worldwide when you can barely change anything at all, not even a small street sign on your local street. What the hell…
Information is masking of reality…
All the environmentalists are so disdained at BP, the gulf oil, etc. Greenpeace attacks ships, etc. They like the fight. Obama “promises” “green energy”, etc.
But they never ever proposed anything that is real and doable: like INCREASING MASS TRANSIT . Why ? Why doesn’t Obama and all of the other greens never mention more mass transit, more BUSES, more use of BUSES by companies and government agencies to transport their workers, BUSES all across the USA suburbs ? Because it would solve all the green problems almost immediately, like peak oil and global warming, but it wouldn’t be exciting, the fight about abstract solutions is more fun.
About the information problem, information today shows the limits of abstraction. Everything we read and know occurs far away or even close or happened in the past or will happen in the future, in short, a complete abstraction, where there is no clear cause and effect except the ones that want to be suggested by the “political agendas” TO FORCE NEW LAWS OR CHANGES IN CERTAIN DIRECTIONS. As humans we are local animals that have a small effect if any at all in a very small and local environment, so we barely see any clear causes and effects, let alone in large scale systems like climate change and energy crisis.
IN TRUTH 99 % OF ALL ISSUES have no clear cause and effect mechanism, like even left vs. right politics, it all depends on millions of free will powers deciding to do whatever in any moment, etc. So this is the limits of abstraction, on most issues we can’t do anything but observe how they play out: a play of forces that are without laws and just blind chance.
Check out:ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=172033
and all the posts of nameta9 and old6598 on http://www.ilovephilosophy.com.
They are geniuses…

How Peak Oil caused the end of the world.
Once upon a time, a group of crackpot greenies set forth to explain to the world that “oil was finishing”, that it would mark the end of civilization. So the oil companies got scared and started to drill in all kinds of oddball places, like under the ocean in “deep waters”. What they didn’t know is that the amount of oil under the earth’s surface is so much greater than anyone ever expected: in fact, since oil is just carbon chemistry, is just carbon based molecules that have no relation to “life”, but were created in stars, in interstellar space, in interplanetary space, on many planets and rocks in space by many unknown processes, but similar to the processes that generated the first life forms, they didn’t expect that there be oceans of oil under the earth. So they popped a small hole under the ocean and it all started coming out: the earth was drowned in oil, thanks to the peak oil crowd.
They thought they “knew the processes that created oil”, but nature knew better, they thought “they knew” that science and technology couldn’t find substitutes, but there were, given that the green crowd and no one could possibly imagine all the ways energy could be organized and used in a high technology society. In fact they would have just had to introduce some more mass transit, some simple BUSES, to decrease the use of oil up to 80 % worldwide, and use skyscrapers for energy efficiency, but they were to in love with their “ideological fight”, with the myth of peak oil, and their crusade to “save the world”.
JHK writes:
“How many times a day does it occur to you — perhaps while sitting in traffic, or oogling some girl in a nearby cubicle, or cruising the freezer stacks in the supermarket — that one mile deep in the Gulf of Mexico that crude is just blasting away into the deep blue sea? Anyway, it troubles my hours. ”
Maybe it troubles his hours because what is happening goes directly against his deep held view that oil is limited, there is a contradiction, but can’t seem to pinpoint it down…

Interesting story in the AP today. General Motors reports a 30% increase in sales over this time last year. In fact, demand for GM vehicles is so great that the company is cancelling any planned shut-downs this summer and operating the plants at full capacity. I am very curious to see how the Gulf oil disaster and the ratcheting up of tensions in the Middle East affect GM’s fourth quarter, What’s that old saying about it’s always sunny before the storm?

I traveled recently across the USA on the decaying rail system,and it’s sad to see great train stations like those in Chicago or L.A or San Diego without the fast train services they should have
In contrast,I have also traveled recently in many European countries,and in France,Germany,Spain,and many other countries there are splendid fleets of very fast comfortable trains ,widely used and sweeping across old borders and using great stations which teem with life.
In Berlin a great new station,using all sorts of technigues recycles it’s rainfall from it’s steel roof and is heated by solar panels…from it there are hundreds of train movements a day,to every corner of Germany and to every great city in Central Europe.
I traveled on a new Fast Train to Warsaw in Poland in a few hours.
Russia which has always had a massive train system is now moving to Very Fast trains.
A new one has just started on the Moscow-St Petersburg route and another which will soon connect Moscor with Warsaw…providing a seamless fast rail service from Moscow to Berlin ,then to Paris and on to Madrid and Lisbon…all just a dream in the USA,where one train I used from LA to Seattle was 12 hours late !!
It all shows the decline of the USA and it’s ageing basic infrastructure

Just when I am about give up scanning this BLOG – a couple worthwhile posts keep me hanging around.
Yeah, like children, we’ve harnessed fire and the wheel and expanded their innate capacities to global proportions.
We’ve learned to cheat death and assure successful births without the maturity to realize the consequences.
And even now, as signs of our shortcomings manifest themselves across the entire planet; no concerted effort exists to rest the reigns of our destinies away from the greedy short-sighted interests of our corporate captains and return at least some self-determination back to multitudes that will suffer first from the massive folly of techno-profiteering-at-any-cost philosophy.
Yeah – what you said JK…

Vlad, you are very calculated about what you say to people. You know how to hurt them. Only you could’ve read that into what I wrote. See what I mean about high IQs being dangerous? You just use yours to get under people’s skin. I think that’s sad. At least I try to use whatever I was given to help.

“Why don’t you try making the smallest local changes, like pushing for clothes-lines instead of having people use clothes-driers, and discouraging every tiny parcel of land from being fenced off and allowing 3-story houses to be built?”
When you weild a power great enough to effect these sorts of attitude/behavioral changes on a broad scale, let me know and I’ll be your disciple. Otherwise, we can only change the world by changing ourselves. No one wants to hear it. They want to see it working. I spent too many years talking about it. Now I’m just doing it. Clothesline, graywater, cisterns, bicycle, radical energy conservation, growing tons of food, all that stuff. And guess what, good people pick up on it. Almost all humans are quick studies. Outside of crowd psychologies anyway. And the ones who aren’t end up starving to death surrounded by fish.

from WSJ:
“In another positive note for the industry, sales of certain trucks and SUVs, which generate big profits, rose significantly, perhaps driven in part by recent declines in the price of gasoline.
Sales of Ford’s F-Series pickup trucks jumped 49% to 49,858, their highest since March 2008. Ford credited a lift from a new Super Duty truck and increased favor among consumers after Ford avoided taking government aid as GM and Chrysler did.
Toyota saw sales of its Tundra pickup climb 32%, while sales of GM’s Chevrolet Suburban SUV doubled compared to May 2009. ”
Well well, short memory. Not so long ago when gas was $4/gal, the American car-makers were staring death in the eye (GM is not even listed as GM anymore on the exchange, it’s so dead), not having sane products to sell. American consumers were staring homelesness in the eye having to pay $120 to fill up that F-150’s and Suburbans and various SUVs. Now with gas under $3 it’s back to the orgy. Well you fools, the day of reconing isn’t far off. What can you possibly be THIINKING buying vehicles getting less than 25 mpg while leaking oil is killing life in the Gulf?????? (and other placles as well). Sadly, I’m not even surprised, just sad. We’re all in such big trouble, and most of us have no clue…

It’s an enculturated set of values that’s our biggest hurdle to smoother energy descent. Agriculture has to evolve, religion has to evolve, our mindset about latent energy/fertility has to evolve.
We can’t keep going forth and multiplying, treating Nature like our bitch, harvesting latent fertility from acre after acre and flushing it down the toilet. The idea that these things are even possible in perpetuity shows a disconnection with the laws of physics on a fairly grand scale. I’m slowly discovering the gravity of every old saying. ‘What goes up must come down.’ ‘The meek shall inherit the earth.’ “Keep it simple, stupid.’ They all mean something. Something important I think.
And if we inevitably must come down, why not get to it while we still have enough resources left to make the transition in some semblence of comfort?
I sold my clothes dryer for 60 bucks yesterday by the way. I like the way sun-dried clothes smell better anyway.
Tripp out.

Walt Kelly (Pogo) once said that we are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities.
All you have to do – post-peak energy, post population:resource overshoot – is change everything about the way you think. Contraction is different. Make the changes that have to be made regardless of what “they” are doing. Some of them aren’t comfortable, like turning off the AC, and some will offend people, like composting humanure, but I think a willingness to discard outdated and inappropriate dogma is more important than it’s ever been before.
Or we could evaluate TransOcean’s 200-day moving average some more and try to keep the sand grains out of our eyes.

“And if we inevitably must come down, why not get to it while we still have enough resources left ”
because our fellow-muricans aren’t givng up our non-negotiable way of life, not even for future security (or even survival)…
Face it folks, we’re a third-rate nation with a first-rate military (for now anyway). Repeat after me “we are not number one”, “we are not the greatest”. Heck, we aren’t even number 2 or 3 or 4. It’s shameful when Russian has better trains than us. Kunstler once said in jest “a train system that Bulgaria would be embarassed by” (loose quote). Unless someone convinces us to eat humble-pie, we’re going down down down.

having enrolled in some online classes at an accredited college all i can say is they are
mostly ‘a joke’.
onetime a youngster told me with pride [ i think he was iranian] someone else takes my ‘hard’ classes for me, online. he wanted to get into a better program at a better college.
that being said try ‘computer programming architecture with differental equasions’ or whatever.

Vlad, the Eugenicist, could you explain the impact of these religious habits on the quality of European-derived stock?
And yes, Whites desperately need some long term Eugenics. We have centuries of Catholic Monasticism and more recent Protestant sterility to overcome.
I want to clarify a few things:
1. I largely talked about iq so much because I wanted to show you that some high iq folks are reproducing. (Mensans are usually strange, weak, and ugly so they don’t have kids much.)
2. I am not in favor of miscegenating whites out of existence the way some Jews are.
3. I am not that Jewish. Am mostly British and Russian with some German. Am not more than about 1/4 Jewish.
4. I prefer the temperament and looks of higher-quality whites to even east Asians. I am most attracted to slim good-looking moderately young white females.
Ok?

Sorry, don’t know anything about Bulgaria, other than you have excellent bread, cheese, yogurt and vegetables (the wife and I once took a rusty ship around the Black Sea coast and stopped at 2 ports in Bulgaria (also ports in Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Romania). What kind of trains do u have? Can’t be worse than ours…

I recently traveled about 450 km with train – it took about 6 hours, unfortunately there are no fast trains here around and most of the wagons being 30 years old (although some new “Siemens” trains appeared) :(. I have never been in usa so I can’t judge, but the real difference is that here there is no suburbia at all, most of the cities are densely packed with communist built buildings. My home town Gabrovo is walkable and serviced by electric trolley buses –pbase.com/ngruev/gabrovo .
Other difference I think is that most of the people living in rural villages garden and grow most of their food – my grandfather is almost self-sufficient. Bulgaria used to be like the Soviet union and collapsed similarly, with rampant crime and corruption – I have glimpsed the coming collapse.
Ironically the state is starting a massive highway buildup currently with the support of EU and almost all of the money will go for asphalt, nothing for better train infrastructure.

very interesting DSimeonov, thanks for sharing. You just can’t win, first the communists raped you, now the corporations will… sorry to hear you’re going to repeat our mistakes… we need to be learning from your grandfather… how much land does he use to be self-sufficient, and what does he grow?

Neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.
=======================
The Jews (in particular the orthodox Jews) created a monster when they wrote this whole sabbath thingy into their law as though it came from the mouth of the LORD himself. Now every o-dox Jew in town (there are a lot where I live) has to pre-tear an adequate supply of toilet paper sheets prior to sundown on Friday. I shit you not! Tearing toilet paper off the roll is considered work. Personally I think wiping your ass is more of a chore than tearing tissue … especially if you’re cursed with one of those dumps that no matter how many times you wipe you never get it all. That’s why I was so thrilled to learn about the “hand held bidet” on my trip to Dubai last November.
They also need to think through (before the sabbath begins) what light switches might require flipping because flipping a light switch is considered work. Automatic timers must be purchased and set appropriately. It’s either that or you have to go out on the street and ask one of the goyim kids (yuk!) if they wouldn’t mind coming in your house and throwing a switch for you. (And then the goyim kids scratch their heads and have to ask their parents “what’s up wid dat?” and, of course, the parents are hard-pressed to explain it.) And God knows what kind of negative feedback loop is touched off by having a goyim kid in your house, especially on the sabbath … a kosher inspection by the rabbi? a fumigation maybe?
Also, you have to either unscrew the light in the fridge so it doesn’t go on when you open the door or you have to purchase a “sabbath-ready” fridge that somehow takes care of all this automatically. I guess it has a chip in it that calculates Friday sundown to Saturday sundown and shuts off the light during this period for the next 50-100 years. If your fridge malfunctions and the light goes on you burn in hell forever. Strike that. That’s what would happen (i.e. you burn in hell) if the Catholics had a refrigerator light rule.
Flushing the toilet is also considered work. For obvious reasons I won’t bother delving into the implications of this.
Personally, I think if there was an all-knowing creator of the universe he wouldn’t give two shits what we all do – workwise – during any given 24 hr period. “In what way is work not hallow?”, I would ask him.
Treebeardsuncle seems to be a well informed Jew … maybe he can explain it.

I am not pretty sure how much land he uses, maybe between an acre and two. Rural life in Bulgaria in recent years is very harsh, most of the villages are populated with old people and gypsies, with gypsies being the biggest obstacle to self-sufficiency (they will try to steal your garden produce).
My grandfather grows or makes lots of things – beans, corn, watermelons, melons, tomatoes, sheep cheese, wine, brandy, etc. He is very healthy at the age of 85. When I was younger I used to help him in the summers, so at least I know a thing about rural life, but I will refresh my knowledge, you know it will be valuable in the future.

Hi.My brother has a friend who is studying the Talmud. Will see if I can learn anything about the Sabbath rules.
My family is not-practicing and only my mom’s side has some Jewish background. Our legacy is in literacy, academics, and investing.
Geoff

Will see if I can learn anything about the Sabbath rules.
=====================
You were not supposed to take my challenge seriously. The entire post was intended as a spoof (although the rules I wrote about are true as far as I know) but apparently I have amused only myself.
BTW, I’m into investing too and try to be well read if that is what you mean by “literacy.”

I call it the way I see it yo. You have to stop being so sensitive. After all, you called me a monster before. Remember? And you have to become more sensitive to how you project your dark side onto people who differ from you politically or agriculturally. Or are you claiming that you don’t have an ego? Even though you said the world of permaculture is very competitive etc – you being the exception?
Consider the possibility that whay I said is true or partially true – maybe that’s why it hurts so much? And also remember that I have praised you before too. I am well aware of your virtues and strengths. You may well be the most self actualized person on this blog. Doing exactly what you want to do, every spade of dirt shoveled and every weed pulled a fufillment of your being and mission. I both envy your happiness and admire your virtues. But when you start to preach, you invoke a whole other dynamic. And in so doing, you along with your doctrine, have to be willing to be judged, since you have judged.

One can’t change one key thing without affecting everything. Instead of letting Nature do quality contol, we have interfered with modern medicine. And in fact, all of Civilization is a kind of interference. And the the coup de grace was the Pill and Abortion. Since we don’t let Nature do quality contol anymore, we must begin to do it ourselves. Pay welfare mothers to get sterilized. Tax breaks for couples with two or more children. Even bigger incentives for high level people to have lots of children. It can be done – it must be done. We must take up the slack for Mother Nature – or she will step in and jerk the rope tight around our collective necks. And of course, Feminism so called, must be destroyed. It is an evil cult of sterility and hatred; a worhip of the sterile Goddess just as abortion is a modern worhip of Moloch.
An alien from outer space would look at the West and conclude that we were in the business of breeding Africans, Arabs, and Mestizos for some odd reason. And the people who think that this dark skinned mob can just take over the West – and have it still be the West – are a sad bunch of nincompoops.
Vladimir Putin is doing his part, if only America would try and match him. That would be a true “race” – a race to repopulate the West with high level Whites.
The Irish have a very low IQ for Western Europe, only 93. This may well be partly to do with their intense Catholicism and also the high level of emmigration. Emmigrants tend to be the brightest, except for the Mexicans who are obviously the criminal class of Mexico.

Hi.
Someone needs to enlighten Scarlet Runner about the Green Revolution, about how all those genetically modified crops were introduced into India. He also needs to be englightened about how colonialism and international trade and aid have let to the growth of African and Latin American populations. Also, and I mean this in all sincerity, people who use the expression “where … at” and habitually end sentences with prepositions should not be among those reproducing, especially not with white women of quality. That is exactly what we are endeavoring to discourage. That is all for you for now.

Hi, Vlad. If you are not my friend, I would at least like to consider you an ally. In this current political climate ruled by the coporations, where we are becoming demographically swamped by the mud races, and your selfish short-sighted craven white brethen are lending you little aid, you should look to ally yourself with anyone with guts, and resources who has a similar world view. I agree with you about how feminism is a problem. Perhaps you are aware that women tend to reproduce less the more education they have, particularly past eighth grade. I noticed that the college lesbians at UC Santa Cruz from 1989 – 1994 were particularly intent on their feminism and ill-disposed towards men. I have had the best fortune with healthy lusty somewhat educated working-class white girls. I have a little April Tara on the way. Have some Irish both green and orange, and a lot of Scotch. The best of Ireland is probably in America now. Was at an Irish festival in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin last weekend. Can still see they like to party. Know they are not particularly strong in abstract thinking, but folks with a lot of Irish blood tend to be outgoing, verbally fluent, and spirited. They can be quite charming but are frequently not reliable. They are also a good-looking people for the most part. Even now there is some feeling of affinity. I see it more with the Irish and the Italians than with most Europeans. You may be able to make some headway with such folk.

Orlando Poe? JR, that’s the best moniker you could come up with? Any relation to Edgar Alan? Or Tony?
Look, he can sing, dance and write! I love you.
But, quit pickin on Kris Can. She’s just a young thang tryin to make a livin in this cold, cold world. Besides, Jim’s gonna ban you again for dissin his gal.
Peace, love, out.

Hey Treecutter, I was talking to Vlad the Impaler, not you. Anyway, Maybe dere’s more of us cuz we gots more mojo den all de pastyfaces out there? Have you considered dat? By de way, stay away from dat GM food, dat be sum bad shit.

Hey treebeard, i gotta tell ya — at first i was reading your posts with a mix of contempt and disbelief, but then i understood — you are a wacko. Psycho. Mad. Other than that, you’re an asswipe.
I came here looking for intelligent discussion and comment related to the topics of Kunstler’s writings, instead i find your raving lunatic rantings. I hope YOU didn’t pass your insanity genes on, we have problems enough without it.

The stupid/vulgar virus is flourishing up here. We are so screwed on so many levels and the irony is that people up here sneer at you guys, they think Americans are idiots.
Our national police force (RCMP) is a joke. They cannot do routine arrests without dead bodies everywhere. Not long ago an intruder got past RCMP guards and into our prime minister’s residence. The PM fended off the intruder with an eskimo sculpture. Can you imagine? And when the RCMP was alerted it took them about 10 minutes to get in the house and up the stairs (they must have been tripping over empties).
Apparently the guy was a mental patient, he’d been throwing stones into the PM’s yard in front of security cameras (waving occasionally) for about 20 minutes before he climbed the fence. The RCMP guards missed all that. The mind reels.
Plus the RCMP could give seminars in third world countries on how to NOT get to the bottom of official corruption. I don’t even want to talk about our spy agency.
And, if we’re so smart, why are we inflating a housing bubble like the one you guys just had? We must have looked at the financial disaster that took down half your banking system and decided that’s exactly what we need here. In the last 30 years we’ve had two huge home grown real estate calamities. Didn’t we learn?
I could go on and on. Why bother.

E, why do you think they are so loud? Have you ever had to be on a form of public transit with any of your students? Take a look, or listen around you, they are ALL plugged into their ipad/phones, with the volume cranked up to 11. They are going deaf.
Another example of techno illness: At the airport recently I noticed that most of the Norte Americanos were all sitting near electric outlets so that they could plug in their laptops & cell phones. The sickest one was some guy that was talking on a cell, while doing something on his laptop, and also doing something with an iphone, all at the same time. Geez, can you give it a rest already?
Meanwhile, did you know that soon both coasts of Florida are going to have beautiful black sand beaches, just like Hawaii’s? But without the volcanoes, AND you can drive the Expedition/Yukon there!!! Come on DOWN for the Summertime fun!!!
Dee Jones, cell phone free! And I ain’t gots no i-thingy either.

Well, hello, kind sir, you have gotten my attention.
And just what did you find hard to believe? You stated you were looking for intelligent conversation. Does that include using such lingo as a**wipe? How about fu**tard? That is a favorite expression of the pissant NotMommy whom you greatly resemble.
Perhaps, you lack the perspicacity to elucidate the erudition of my writing. You have my condolences for your lack of imagination, cognition, and ability to appreciate learning and insights.
***
Gogreenordi wrote:
Hey treebeard, i gotta tell ya — at first i was reading your posts with a mix of contempt and disbelief, but then i understood — you are a wacko. Psycho. Mad. Other than that, you’re an asswipe.
I came here looking for intelligent discussion and comment related to the topics of Kunstler’s writings, instead i find your raving lunatic rantings. I hope YOU didn’t pass your insanity genes on, we have problems enough without it.

Mr. Kuntsler asks why Nobama hasn’t weighed in on the Wall Street credit default swaps.I can tell you why he hasn’t weighed in. Because the idiots that are profiting from these “alpabet soups” of nonsense are the same jackasses who’ve donated the most money to every ranking Demo-rat, including nobama himself in the last 10 years. Wall Street has donated to the top ranking Demo-rats at a clip of about 70%-30% vs. Republicans for years. Seriously, why isn’t anyone asking questions as to how nobama has the “audacity” to scold wall street while he lines his cabinet with every ex-wall street con man of the last 20 years and pockets MILLIONS from their campaign contributions? It’s un-fucking-believable. Ummm….barry….. you wanna clamp down on corruption and cheats?…..how ’bout starting with your cabinet table,idiot? Bush was bad, but nobama is so perversely worse….it’s hard to wrap your arms all the way around it.

I got the feeling once that miles and miles of cavern,the oil was buried in and all the lubricants and dampening effect is gone,there will be an even greater disaster coming as the floor of the gulf caves in and a giant crude oil wave will bury anything up to Oklahoma in all the oil you dumbfucks ever wanted.

Well, the Congress won’t do much about the oil spill, because they have taken a lot of contributions from the oil companies. Hayward can go yachting off in the sunset on the oil wave. Drilling leases are still being given in the Gulf with little oversight since the bureacratic mechanisms were already in place before the spill. I just sold 135 shares of Denbury Resources for small profits late last week. I bet real estate speculating and oil drilling speculation will continue relatively unimpeded. People don’t care about health, safety, the environment, right & wrong or others. They care about possession, profiteering, secrecy, and indulging themselves. Converting the biosphere to a garbage dump is the material result of accumulating money.
Geoff
Sacramento, Ca

Ok.
Well, here is how it is going to go for the oil companies, particularly those associate with the oil spill. BP is going to walk. Transocean will weasel out of paying much of anything just like Haliburton. Cameron and Anardarko will have even less liability. By next summer they will go back to raking in the money. Fishing will take a fair-sized hit and the tourism industry will pretend the spill never happened.
Geoff

Here is another article for the libtards out there.
Read how men and women are biologically and mentally different.
This article is printed for that fine site American Rennaissance which routinely displays craveness and truth which is incongruous with the lying craveness found so generally elsewhere:
(See amren.com/ar/1992/03/index.html.)
Sex of the Brain: Why Men and Women are Different
Brain Sex, Anne Moir, & David Jessel, Carol Publishing Group, 1991, 242 pp., ISBN: 0818405430, $17.95
Reviewed by Thomas Jackson
“Men are different from women. To maintain that they are the same in aptitude, skill or behaviour is to build a society based on a biological and scientific lie.”
With these brave words begins a remarkable book by two journalists, Anne Moir and David Jessel. Brain Sex is their attempt to get at the biological and scientific truth, no matter how much it may threaten current intellectual fashion. As the authors point out, it has been precisely during the period when liberal feminism has been most shrilly insisting that men and women are largely equivalent that scientific research has produced incontrovertible evidence that they are not.
It was Anne Moir, who has a PhD in genetics, who first learned about some of the new research findings. As she and Mr. Jessel looked further, they found that many eye-opening discoveries about sex differences were known only to specialists. They claim that their book was simply waiting to be written by anyone ready to go through the scientific literature, but they are overly modest. Few people could have done so lively and thorough a job.
There are striking parallels between the study of sex differences and the study of race differences. Both yield results that refute the assumptions behind social policy and both can be professionally dangerous. Nevertheless, entrenched liberalism is not quite so hostile to the facts about sex as it is to those about race. Even Time magazine toyed with the possibility of sex differences in a recent cover story but stopped well short of Dr. Moir’s and Mr. Jessel’s conclusions. “The argument about the existence of brain sex differences has been won,” they write, and their book is an invaluable collection of evidence.
Hormones Are All
Probably the greatest surprise to the layman is to learn that hormones are even more important than genes in governing sex-related behavior. It is massive doses of the male hormone testosterone, both during gestation and at puberty, that make a male brain different from a female brain.
The brain, it appears, is naturally inclined to be female. Unless it is bathed in testosterone at critical stages, the brain of a genetic male — someone with the XY combination of chromosomes — will not develop male characteristics. As an adult, even if he is anatomically male, a man may have a brain that remains female.
This has real consequences. In the female brain, some mental functions seem to be scattered around the hemispheres, whereas the male brain is specialized and compartmentalized. The parts of a woman’s brain that handle speech and emotion are spread across both halves of the brain, whereas these capacities in a man are tucked into discreet locations. Moreover, the corpus callosum, which connects the right and left brains, is thicker and more highly developed in women. The two halves of their brains communicate better.
Infant boys and girls begin to behave differently long before social pressures could have begun to effect them.
In practical terms, this means that women are verbally more fluent than men but are less able to separate emotion from reason. At the same time, since they can bring more diverse parts of the brain to bear on a problem, they are better able than men to arrive at apparently non-rational but correct conclusions — “women’s intuition” is based in biology.
Different brain constructions also produce the few sex differences that have gained public acknowledgment despite a hostile intellectual climate: Men are better at math, have better hand-eye coordination, are better mechanics, and more easily grasp spatial relations.
For every mathematically gifted girl there are 13 gifted boys and the best boys are always better than the best girls.Boys, however, are four times more likely to be in remedial reading classes than girls.
These differences have routinely been attributed to the way children are reared, but infant boys and girls begin to behave differently long before social pressures could have begun to effect them. One researcher says, “After 15 years looking for an environmental explanation and getting zero results, I gave up.”
Some purely biological differences have been widely confirmed, but are scarcely known outside the laboratory. A woman’s senses, for example, are more acute than a man’s; she can hear, taste, smell, and feel things he cannot, and she has better peripheral vision. In some sensory tests, there is no overlap between the scores of men and women; the least sensitive woman outscores the most sensitive man.
One of the conclusions that egalitarians find most difficult to accept is that men and women differ biologically in how badly they want success and power. Dr. Moir and Mr. Jessel are unequivocal: Men are more competitive and dominating than women because their brains make them so. Some of the strongest evidence for this comes from people who have developed abnormally.
Wrong Turn in the Womb
There are several critical moments in the formation of the male brain at which a sufficient flow of testosterone is vital for normal development. However, certain medications and physiological conditions can produce abnormal flows of female hormones in a woman’s body while she is pregnant. These hamper the work of the fetus’ own male hormones and the transition to a male brain may be incomplete. As a consequence, a boy is likely to be effeminate or even homosexual, though the two need not go hand in hand.
Studies suggest that the intra-uterine testosterone doses that make for a ruggedly masculine body and manner don’t come along at the same time as the ones that direct the male libido towards women. Depending on the timing of hormone flows, a homosexual may be typically male in every way except for his lust for men, and an extremely effeminate man may be very much a Casanova. In both cases, it appears that the transition from the female to the male brain was incomplete. Dr. Moir and Mr. Jessel report that this process can be reproduced at will in laboratory animals; homosexual and effeminate rats can be bred without fail by blocking the normal action of testosterone.
As the hormone theory of sexual differentiation would suggest, homosexuals and effeminate men have brains that operate more like those of women. They use language better than other men and their mental functions are more scattered around the brain. Their senses are more acute than those of other men — though not so acute as those of women — but they have less mechanical ability. Effeminate men are less aggressive and less ambitious than other men.
The equivalent effects have been found in women. Girls born with a genetic abnormality called Turner’s Syndrome do not have ovaries. Since ovaries produce a small amount of masculinizing testosterone, these girls do not have even this small check on the naturally female propensities of the brain. They are exaggeratedly feminine, shy, accommodating, constantly dreaming of children — which, alas, they cannot have — and preoccupied with romance and marriage. Their sense of mechanics and spatial relations is also exaggeratedly female; many have a terrible time remembering even how to get to school.
When girls in the womb are exposed to abnormal doses of testosterone the very opposite happens. They grow up as aggressive tomboys, with an interest in guns and dump trucks. Although they may marry and have children, they are likely to be successful career women, with unsentimental attitudes towards family. Not surprisingly, they are likely to be better than most women at math and mechanics.
Psychotics and Psychopaths
One of the most fascinating corollaries to the discovery of how important hormones are in giving the brain its sex is a theory that would explain why men are so much more likely than women to be sexually or psychologically abnormal. Sado-masochists, fetishists, voyeurists, and exhibitionists are almost exclusively male. Homosexuality is ten times more common among men than women, and schizophrenics are overwhelmingly male.
It is likely that this is because more can go wrong with men when their brains undertake the tricky business of becoming male. The female brain need simply stick to nature’s path, whereas the transition to maleness can go wrong in many spectacular ways. Moreover, if the adult male brain is more likely to be unbalanced to begin with, the greater volatility and aggressiveness brought on by high, typically male levels of testosterone only makes things worse. Biology thus explains why men are vastly more likely than women to be criminals, psychopaths, and deviates of all kinds. Even when they are “normal,” men are likely to be more violent, self-centered, and power-hungry than women; this has always been so, in every known society.
These differences naturally make for difficulties in marriage. Dr. Moir and Mr. Jessel marvel that marriages hold up as well as they do, given the biological differences that bulk so large between the sexes. Women, even from infancy, are more interested in people than in things, whereas the interests of boys are reversed. Girls and women are drawn to friendship, peace-making, conversation, and emotion, and bring these propensities to a union with a creature who is virtually an alien — one who is more calculating, more interested in things, and less interested in talk.
To men, women appear to be unpredictable bundles of emotion who burst into tears for the oddest reasons. Dr. Moir and Mr. Jessel suggest an explanation: “Women cry more than men perhaps because they have more to cry about — they are receiving more emotional input, reacting more strongly to it, and expressing it with greater force.”
One thing they might well despair over is the male attitude towards sex. The authors of Brain Sex bravely state a stark fact that is rarely acknowledged in print: “The desire for sexual novelty is innate in the male brain.” They go on to describe how the aphrodisiac effect on the male of new sex partners came to be known as the Coolidge effect. President Calvin Coolidge and his wife were visiting a farm and as Mrs. Coolidge passed the chicken coop she asked how often the rooster copulated each day:
“Dozens of times,” was the reply. “Please tell that to the President,” Mrs. Coolidge requested. When the President passed the pens and was told about the rooster, he asked “Same hen every time?” “Oh no, Mr. President, a different one each time.” The President nodded slowly, then said “Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge””
Apocryphal or not, this story illustrates something every cattle breeder knows. A bull shows little interest in a cow he has just copulated with, but will mount a fresh cow — or seven more fresh cows — with undiminished zest. Attempts to disguise the first cow make no difference; the bull wants something new.
Dr. Moir and Mr. Jessel do not flinch from the obvious conclusion: “In starkly sexual, and evolutionary terms, there is nothing in marriage for men, given their rooster desire for novelty and the widest possible distribution of their seed.” Men do marry, though, and many are faithful because they know this is best for society and for their own children.
Remaking the World
It is in the face, not only of millennia of human history but of overwhelming scientific data that feminists and liberals insist on the essential equivalence of men and women. If “sexism” is eliminated, they argue, women will assume the same levels of power and achievement as men. If women can be liberated from the tyranny of child care, they will take their place beside men as bank presidents and astronauts.
Dr. Moir and Mr. Jessel argue in the clearest possible terms that this is folly. Women will never be as powerful or successful as men because their brains drive them in different directions: “Men will make the most extraordinary sacrifices of personal happiness, health, time, friendships and relationships in the pursuit and maintenance of power, status and success. Women won’t; most of them are simply not made that way.”
Not only are women biologically equipped for motherhood, their brains yearn for it. Women are nature’s natural parents.
What women are naturally made for is motherhood. Not only are they biologically equipped for it, their brains yearn for it. Women are nature’s natural parents. A woman’s breasts may drip milk at the mere sound of her child’s cry. Fathers, no matter how good their intentions, cannot understand, comfort, or care for their children the way mothers can — although effeminate men, with more feminine brains, handle children better than do normal men.
One of the great tragedies of feminism is that it devalues the very undertaking for which women are unquestionably gifted. Motherhood is the arena in which a woman’s sensitivity and generosity can shine the brightest, yet feminist dogma equates child care with slavery. As the authors of Brain Sex put it, “feeding, clothing, and educating the successor generation is as noble a task as earning the money to pay for its food, clothing, and education. It is also, ultimately, as rewarding, but most men have to wait until they are grandparents to appreciate the fact.”
Dr. Moir and Mr. Jessel conclude that “liberation” is often unnatural. Women force themselves into competitive careers for which they are emotionally and biologically unsuited, and are plagued with guilt because they must circumscribe the mothering towards which both their brains and bodies impel them.
Some women, of course, are different, and there is no reason to foreclose their professional options. But to hope for the day when half the world’s nuclear scientists will be women is to hope for the impossible. As Dr. Moir and Mr. Jessel point out, 99 percent of the people who hold patents are men. Only by thwarting biology could that number ever be reduced to 50 percent.
Round Pegs in Square Holes
It is difficult enough to manage a society of two sexes without willfully ignoring the ways in which men and women are different. Insisting that men be emotional or that women be competitive will not make them so. Both sexes would be spared a great deal of distress if they acknowledged their differences and understood, respected, and made the most of them. Of course, wise men and women do this even in today’s misguided era of obligatory equality.
Society makes a terrible error when it tries to force the sexes into the same roles, just as it makes a terrible error when it tries to force the races into a state of equivalency. No society can flourish if it is built, as the authors of Brain Sex put it, “on a biological and scientific lie.” In matters of sex and race, liberal orthodoxy insists on lies rather than truth. Today we are reaping the consequences. AR

I read the interesting article about the future of bicycle.
In Italy we still use roads made in stones by Romans 2000 years ago.
It takes much longer to make a road like that and it doesn’t allow huge speed for cars, but it lasts forever.
It is like Chinese goods compared to good quality goods.
They are much cheaper, but you are lucky if they last one week…
We have to learn to make good, long lasting goods.
I honestly begin to be fed up to change my appliances every year.
It is a waste of money, of time and mostly of resources.
We drawn in garbage and our life is getting hell.
Without oil we will certainly have a better future, also if what I think better is not what many think.

Treebeardsuncle wrote: “One of the great tragedies of feminism is that it devalues the very undertaking for which women are unquestionably gifted.”
Looks like somebody’s read John Norman’s “Slave Girls of Gor” too many times. By the same argument, all males should be happily employed as studs, f*cking several times per day, since it’s what differentiates them from females in a strict biological sense.
Yawn. Do you think a man is any better than me at programming & data analysis just because we’ve got different kinds of stuff between our legs, or that I shouldn’t be doing what I’m good at just because someone else wrote a critique of feminism?
Spare us the pitifully shallow thinking, please. Oh, and if you haven’t had the sexist experience of being treated as no more than a breeding machine plus household and kitchen appliance, followed by low pay and limited career aspects when you finally try to get back into the workforce later in life, you clearly don’t realize what the feminists were talking about when they compare it to slavery or endless drudgery.

to Treebeard: listen asswipe, you have been asked at least once politely to quit posting MASSIVE cut-and-paste articles, is it too much for your high IQ to post a link to whatever worthless junk you want to share? That’s number one. Number two — no one cares how much money you have or what investments you make. You’re a perfect example of (presumably) high IQ people lacking elementary social skills. Do you have Asperger’s by any chance? Or, and the third thing, your use of pretentious language only shows what a dork you are (“..you lack the perspicacity to elucidate the erudition of my writing.”) YOU lack the common sense to know that you’are an annoying asswipe. And the forth thing — no one gives a flying fuck about your ethnic background. You may want to change your behavior so you’d come across as something other than self-impressed self-absorbed fucktard (thanks for the suggestion, the perfect term for your current self). Other than that (and your stinking bigoted views), I have no problems with you.

Nudge said to Tree “Spare us the pitifully shallow thinking, please.”
But Nudge, we’re dealing with a self-described genius here who has a sky-high IQ, surely he can’t be wrong? It seems he has constructed a paradigm for himself where HE is the highest life form on Earth, and all others (women, fish, poor people, dark-skinned people) are inferior. Makes me wonder how a guy like that functions in real life???
Just so you know, I worked with women in IT who had analytical skills, attention to detail, ability to focus, multitask, creativity and imagination as good and better in many cases than the guys in the same profession.

Gogreenordi wrote: “But Nudge, we’re dealing with a self-described genius here who has a sky-high IQ, surely he can’t be wrong? It seems he has constructed a paradigm for himself where HE is the highest life form on Earth, and all others (women, fish, poor people, dark-skinned people) are inferior.”
Funny you should mention that. These high-IQ privileged college-educated white males (a group to which Tree surely belongs, since he’s so bright as to make everything else vanish within a thousand miles of him) are essentially the same socio-gender-economic class that runs Haliburton, Goldman Sachs, Con Agra, etc and the same types who were in charge of BP’s ill-fated “drill here, drill now” work on the Macondo reservation in the Gulf of Mexico.
The operative question to ask about them is this: what else have they done or got wrong (or have in the works) that we don’t know about yet? Some new class of toxic derivatives? A new kind of bomb? Yet another ‘war to end all wars’?

In response to your various points:
Your First:I will consider that request.
Number II: I don’t take online communication seriously. It is just an outlet. If what I say annoys you, it is of little relevance, especially if neither a school nor work service is being used. I don’t think you or anyone other than JHK or his staffer has much clout here.
III. Your choice of language shows you are either a juvenile or an ignoramus or both.
IV. See point III. Also, I was talking to VK for the most part. He has a problem with Jews and I was making some points to clarify where I was coming from in that regard.
gogreenordi replied to comment from treebeardsuncle | June 20, 2010 11:14 AM | Reply
to Treebeard: listen asswipe, you have been asked at least once politely to quit posting MASSIVE cut-and-paste articles, is it too much for your high IQ to post a link to whatever worthless junk you want to share? That’s number one. Number two — no one cares how much money you have or what investments you make. You’re a perfect example of (presumably) high IQ people lacking elementary social skills. Do you have Asperger’s by any chance? Or, and the third thing, your use of pretentious language only shows what a dork you are (“..you lack the perspicacity to elucidate the erudition of my writing.”) YOU lack the common sense to know that you’are an annoying asswipe. And the forth thing — no one gives a flying fuck about your ethnic background. You may want to change your behavior so you’d come across as something other than self-impressed self-absorbed fucktard (thanks for the suggestion, the perfect term for your current self). Other than that (and your stinking bigoted views), I have no problems with you.

Well, in your case, the appropriate reply is
“If you throw a stone into a group of dogs, the one who yelps is the one who got hit.”
You may be right about the class details in a certain rough sense. I did work for the Naval Air Warfare Weapons Division in China Lake for 3 years, in 2 radar branches and the ordinance division. That stay provided a good nucleus for retirement. I also worked for Intel as a product development engineer. However, the management of most of the big corporations is derived from a different cut of those with more priviledged births. They frequently go to the big IV league colleges and get degrees in business and econimics rather than science and engineering.
BP also comes from England which is a more close-society than America.
Actually, as far as the future goes, we are moving towards a Spanish-Chinese-Muslim world. The white race is on the way out if current trends persist. The Chinese will run the corporations but in a less creative way for better or worse. The Spanish will continue form a menial laboring and agricultural class. The muslims will make trouble. You can check lifeaftertheoilcrash.net for some of the nefarious plans of the power elite: genetic fingerprinting,corporate ownership of genomos, and tracking or various people, mind control, etc.
Geoff
Nudge replied to comment from gogreenordi | June 20, 2010 11:55 AM | Reply
Gogreenordi wrote: “But Nudge, we’re dealing with a self-described genius here who has a sky-high IQ, surely he can’t be wrong? It seems he has constructed a paradigm for himself where HE is the highest life form on Earth, and all others (women, fish, poor people, dark-skinned people) are inferior.”
Funny you should mention that. These high-IQ privileged college-educated white males (a group to which Tree surely belongs, since he’s so bright as to make everything else vanish within a thousand miles of him) are essentially the same socio-gender-economic class that runs Haliburton, Goldman Sachs, Con Agra, etc and the same types who were in charge of BP’s ill-fated “drill here, drill now” work on the Macondo reservation in the Gulf of Mexico.
The operative question to ask about them is this: what else have they done or got wrong (or have in the works) that we don’t know about yet? Some new class of toxic derivatives? A new kind of bomb? Yet another ‘war to end all wars’?

“Men are different from women. To maintain that they are the same in aptitude, skill or behaviour is to build a society based on a biological and scientific lie.”
================
After a lifetime (69 and 7/12ths years) of observation I have concluded that males and females are sooo different they may as well be different species.
If I may generalize, women are driven by the goal of youthful beauty. By age 2 or 3 or 4 they have unconciously absorbed the fact that beauty will aid their passage through life like nothing else. And this extends till their last breath. My 88 year old mother-in-law has no idea whether today is Sunday or Wednesday (i.e. dementia) yet she would not dream of leaving the house without the right jewelry, clothes and makeup. It’s amazing.
Again, to generalize, the male of the species quickly realizes the importance of smarts and strength.

to Treebeard: Hey asswipe, you said:
1. I did work for the Naval Air Warfare Weapons Division in China Lake for 3 years, in 2 radar branches and the ordinance division.
2. That stay provided a good nucleus for retirement.
3. I also worked for Intel as a product development engineer.
to which I reply:
1. The topic is men/women, so quit making YOURSELF the topic (as an aside, no wonder we can’t win a war against 3rd world countries when we have morons like you in our military)
2. I told you, no one cares about your investments
3. The topic wasn’t YOU. Man, are you stupid or what?
For your info, I’m far from juvenile, traveled the world, have several advanced degrees — so when I see an asswipe like you I’m competent to point it out.

Treebeard said “You can check lifeaftertheoilcrash.net for some of the nefarious plans of the power elite: genetic fingerprinting,corporate ownership of genomos, and tracking or various people, mind control, etc.”
Thank you for the link (as opposed a 3-page cut/paste). See, isn’t it better to behave like a reasonable chap? And to save Qstick an effort, it’s “genomes”, not “genomos”. And did you know that women are better spellers than men?

That sounds about right, at least as far as women and beauty are concerned. I have noticed that guys tend to respect athletic ability in other guys especially when they are young. Social dominance is very important. One frequently achieves that through wealth, height, strength, communication skills ,and cunning. As far as intelligence being valued, the results on how someone with smarts is treated are mixed. Intellectual ability is not much valued but social skills usually are and sometimes technical ability is.
Geoff

The topic wasn’t YOU.
================
Of course the topic was him. You made the topic him. You called him an asswipe several times and enumerated your reasons for saying so. You showed your annoyance with him for listing a resume and then you turned right around and did the same thing – you told us you’ve traveled the world and possess advanced degrees. You told us this supported your competence to point things out. I do the same thing. I point out my age and suggest that if wisdom ever comes it comes with age.
And BTW, I am interested to know his ethnic background as a frame of reference. And I am interested in his investments. Who knows, maybe I’ll pick up a good idea.
If you want to pick on another commenter I’d suggest Johnny Rico (aka Orlando Poe). Now there is a real asswipe.

It’s so obvious isn’t it? One wonders how anyone could possibly miss it. The answer is that they aren’t looking – instead they are substituting ideology for simple observation. In other words, substituting what is supposed to be there for what actually IS there.
Now the same thing goes for racial differences. No observant person could possibly believe that East Asians are wired the same as Blacks. And if you really think that all the races are the same, then you are still caught up in ideolgoy. The curse of the non-Jewish Liberal White Man. Personally, based on one particularly demented response to me several months ago, I think you have realized the truth but don’t care to acknowledge it. It might ruin your “credit rating”. Also it would give me too much satisfaction as the being the Agent of Your Awakening.

This is what I’m talking about. As a follower of Malammat, the Sufi path of blame, I can’t help but notice the rich harvest of abuse you are reaping. Good on you, mate. Your reward in heaven shall be great. But I am left the poorer, the poorer. But no matter, I must be generous in allowing you to share in the notoriety and the hatred.
Our differences are a thing of the past. You hate and love all the right things. Politically and strategically we may have some disagreements, certainly. I like what Treebeard himself said, I’m on no one’s side, because no one is on mine. Each People or Nation must develop its own form of Nationalism. But let it be Sinn Fein “For ourselves Alone”. Then and only then, can the Western Peoples unite and form the Imperium.
I’m quite liberal actually – in the best and old fashioned sense of the term. I love African Choral Singing and West African Drumming. The Drum Ensembles are fantastic and the drumming is as complex as a Bach Fugue.
Some of my best friends have been Jews. Lovely, bright, charismatic people. A couple have actually kept with me as I transitioned into a Monster. I have also had some peripheral contact with the Jewish “hard core”. These people hate me on sight. They knew what I was even before I did; even before I became a White Nationalist. In any case, the next war will seperate many – another Brother’s War. The Ancient Greeks didn’t make up Tragedy out of thin air after all. It really is part of life, a part that Americans are too dense and coarse to have any ken of. As I tell my remaining Jewish friends: it’s not your fault what your people have done. Nor is it my fault what mine have done. Neither of us made this world and siutation. But it is here, we are pawns in the hands of destiny and must play our part.

On another subject – I tune in every day to watch the World Cup and, yep, the sound of an enraged hornets nest is still there. I press the mute button. I ask myself how the powers that be can allow this to go on. I do a google search and see the words “World Cup 2010: South Africa ponders vuvuzela ban”. What’s to ponder? What is to fucking ponder? If I ruled the world South Africa would never host another World Cup, EVER and the next person to blow one of those stupid fucking horns would be shot dead on the spot.

“If you want to pick on another commenter I’d suggest Johnny Rico”
Nah, picking on posters isn’t my shtik, I only did it cause Treebeard really pissed me off by pasting article-length material he was lifting elsewhere, and by his bigotry, arrogance and egotism (or should it be egoism? I always mix the two up). This blog appears to be the wild west of cyberspace, so pansies like Treebeard should beware of pissing off cowboys in nasty mood. I think I’m doing him a favor by drawing his attention to his bad behavior. It’s very fair-minded of you to come to his defense, you must be a white anglo-saxon with an innate sense of justice (ok, i’m kidding, before Vlad invites me to join his make-believe cause).

did you hear about the [dying] french banning the WINE AND SAUSAGE PARTIES and the PORK SOUPKITCHENS?
that really got to me..see facebook/wine and sausage parties.
its ok for muslims and immigrants to block the streets but ban wine parties!

arrogance and egotism (or should it be egoism? I always mix the two up)
==================
From Dictionary.com:
Synonyms
1. Egotism, egoism refer to preoccupation with one’s ego or self. Egotism is the common word for obtrusive and excessive reference to and emphasis upon oneself and one’s own importance: His egotism alienated all his friends. Egoism, a less common word, is used especially in philosophy, ethics, or metaphysics, where it emphasizes the importance of or preoccupation with self in relation to other things: sufficient egoism to understand one’s central place in the universe. See also pride.

Is there anyone here who has had any experience with rocket stoves, also known as Winiarski stove? It’s a small extremely efficient cooking stove that uses wood twigs/brush for fuel. I’ve seen a number of designs on youtube, and a friend who recently returned from a Peace Corps tour in Malawi said it’s widely promoted for 3rd world poverty-stricken countries in order to slow down their destruction of forests (what little is left). I’m going to build one for use in our cabin, but would love to hear others’ experiences.

Hi.
Thanks for the support. Thanks to Q too for being generous in spirit. Much to the chagrin of certain other posters, I am going to share another article from that fine site, American Rennaissance. Have been reading from the following link: amren.com/ar/1992/06/index.html.
The particular article is:
***
Killing the Messenger
When science contradicts liberal dogma, the scientists must be punished.
Race, Intelligence, and Bias in Academe, Roger Pearson, Scott-Townsend Publishers, 1991, 304 pp. (soft cover), $15.00. Available from Scott-Townsend Publishers, Box 34070 N.W., Washington, DC 20043. Telephone orders are accepted during business hours at (703) 442-8010.
***
Am going to quote a bit from this article. The riot referred to is the Los Angeles riot in 1992. When blacks are unhappy they do so much to not advance themselves by burning down their own neighborhoods. It is time people learn what to expect from generations of welfare-bred hooligans and morons. (That is a paraphrase of something I have read but is a thought I share.)
The following is a quote from the article and is not something I have written.
…
Seeds of Self-Destruction
Despite the decline of Marxism, the militant egalitarianism it engendered shows no sign of weakening. For decades, the struggle merely to give biology a hearing has had to fight attacks that have two purposes. One is physically to silence any contrary idea. The other is to make an example of dissidents so that others will not speak out. Both purposes have largely been achieved. Top-flight scientists have been repeatedly denied forums for their views, and other researchers who privately agree with them are afraid to say so in public.
Of course, what the early eugenicists predicted is coming to pass. Dysgenic trends in reproduction have been hastened by welfare programs that reward reckless procreation. The steady push of non-whites into Europe and North America is replacing a race that has achieved much with races that have achieved less.
Since biology and genetics have been banished from the debate on social problems, governments continue to pour untold resources into improving the environment for people whose heredity sets insuperable barriers to success. No one dares grapple with the fact that illegitimate, welfare-bred children with IQs of 80 simply cannot be trained for useful work in an advanced society. In the past, such people might have been taught to swing a shovel or carry a hod, but today they do not accept that kind of work even when it is available. America is rearing a constantly growing army of largely non-white criminals, degenerates, and incompetents, who will prey on the competent and the children of the competent for years to come.
Last month’s riots (see cover story) were just another milestone on America’s relentless march towards genetic dystopia. When the dullard children of the dole burn down their own neighborhoods and murder passing whites, no one dares talk of their inherent limitations. Instead, once again, America wrings its hands over the terrible environment these people live in — though it is an environment they have created for themselves.
A society that pays these dullards to have yet more dullard children is courting destruction. Dr. Pearson wonders “whether we may ever hope to reshape our laws and social practices into a logical system more in harmony with the laws that govern evolution and even human nature itself.”
He goes on to say: “Only one thing is sure: A society which sets itself against the immutable laws of biology, causality, and evolution will be an unsuccessful society. An unrealistic and inappropriate culture … will eventually destroy the society that supports it …” AR
***
That is precisely what politically correct ideologs are doing. They are denying not only biology, particularly heredity and evolution, but physics, and even causality in promoting their fantastic agendas. Many argue against even having standards, and making value judgements as if all points of view are equal and all lifestyles are equally worthy of respect and consideration.
That last line in the quote bears repeating, “An unrealistic and inappropriate culture … will eventually destroy the society that supports it …” One can see that already happening through the celebration of coarseness, ignorance, stupidity, miscegenation, and noise that is so prevalant. Not only is the failed speculation in real estate impoverishing local and state governments through reduction in tax revenues, but the welfare system is as well.

Vlad, in my old mountain-climbing days I’ve been roped next to guys, occasionally women, of different races and religions. When you lose your footing at 12,000 ft, it makes no difference if the guy next to you is a Jew or a Black (I’ve climbed with both), what matters is will they hold and not let go, through pain and the risk of their own fall.
I see this as a relevant metaphor for the upcoming harsh times. Among my neighbors are a Pakistani and a Jew. I don’t give a damn what religion/race they are as long as they’re pulling their weight in our common goals and interests (and they do).
To paraphrase, he who remembers history too well is condemned to repeat it. Seems you remember too well who did what to whom. What the fuck? Who cares? The only thing that matters is today and tomorrow. Everyone transgressed against someone at some point or another, we gotta to quit looking in the rearview mirror if we’re to survive the coming hard times with any kind of dignity and peace. Although it seems to me you aren’t interested in peace, you’re interested in some kind of holy war that will purify the white race. Beware of self-fulfilling prophesies.
This is my two cents on this topic.

to treebeard: Hey ASSWIPE, can’t you get it thru your bird-brain that it’s not cool to post articles here? Are you too stoopid to stay away from abuse?
So listen, you submissive piece of shit, quit pasting articles. Repeat after me: I will paste LINKS. I think you do like abuse, Vlad rejected your kinship, your friendship and your alliance, and you’re still around. Have you no sense of self?
Is this why you must diminish others, so you would feel good about yourself? This is why you’re an asswipte, see?

Thank you, for your input. I will endeavor to respond with all the courtesy and decorum that it deserves. You have made a point that you do not appreciate articles being posted here. That is something you should take up with a number of other posters as well, particularly Asoka.
Now, I will grant you the position of “The Arbiter of Cool.” Just as Qshtik is the official editor here, you have earned that position. Typically, those who are cool do not trouble themselves with learning history or science or much in the way of technical skills. They largely achieve their status, if they are male, with a display of sensory-motor skill. I grant that Americans do tend to have strong sensory-motor skills. You alluded to the rock-climbing which is an example of that skill. To secure your status, you should also have demonstrated achievement in a competitive sport such as football, baseball, basketball, hockey, track, or volleyball, or a pastime such as skiing, surfing or skateboarding. If one is a girl or women one can achieve coolness just by having a good body, attractive hair, and fine clothes.
Furthermore, you do demonstrate one of the defining marks of coolness and that is “to graduate from college with your precious ignorance intact, unsullied by any trace of knowledge.” My father was a professor at CSUS from 1965 and 2001 and has often remarked how, no matter what fact, issue, or idea was mentioned, the class professed not to have heard of it. Am sure you also would react in much the same way. Not only have you shown a consistent tendency to display knowledge or relate to content — though not as much as some — you have a vehement hostility, which is typical of LOWER-CLASS young males. I posit that you are uninterested in history, largely because you come from nothing, lack roots, and a tradition of excellence.
I do have a couple questions for you.
How have I shown you that I am submissive?
Am going to answer a couple of your questions:
“Have you no sense of self?”
Actually, I have relatively little sense of self. One of the problems with modern Americans is precisely that they have too much a sense of self and lack senses of place, family, history, community, or much any other form of connection or attachment. In such a society where only novelty is valued, and mobility is high, and therefore waste is great, “many know the price of everything but the value of nothing.”
You also asked this question:
“Is this why you must diminish others, so you would feel good about yourself?”
Is it possible a pot may be calling a kettle black here?
Since you are “cool”, you may not know what this means. Such expressions come from history, from the past, and other things you don’t care about.
What that expression means is that someone is accusing someone else of the same thing he himself is doing or has done.
This statement also deserves a response.
“I think you do like abuse, Vlad rejected your kinship, your friendship and your alliance, and you’re still around.”
First, you used a comma splice after abuse rather than a period. Thus you created a run-on sentence. Proper punctuation of that form is generally taught in sixth grade or so. You are a classic example of someone attending college, who has not learned the rudiments of writing standard proper written English. Though you may not have been assigned to remedial training, you remain a classic example of someone who has attained credentials, who has not been educated. That is surely part of your “coolness.” Education is not cool.
Second, Vlad is free to accept or reject what he chooses.
Third, I see you object to my being around. Unlike, Dale who wrote a letter to James Kunstler complaining about me and then left, and Diogen who also appears to have left, I have neither complained nor left. I will stay. I have met a great many mean-spirited people in life, since 1974 or so, and you hardly rank among the worst of them. I will stay here and annoy you, not merely for weeks, but for years, if you insist on staying that long. I am perfectly content being the lone voice espousing a point of view until I am dead and buried, if that should happen. So, tell me, good sir, how do you see that as being submissive.
Thank you if you deigned to pay attention.
There were a lot of words written here. Words are not cool, especially big ones with more than two syllables, and particularly when combined into sentences of more than 10 words. Now, why don’t you go back to watching tv, and displaying your sophomoric level of calumny like a good little conformist.
Adios.
PS
I have more to add. You, Gogreenordi, do not control this venue. I am not at school or work so I am not required to submit to the inveterate hostile displays of people of little or no intellect, knowledge, awareness, englightenment, or compassion.
gogreenordi replied to comment from treebeardsuncle | June 20, 2010 5:32 PM | Reply
to treebeard: Hey ASSWIPE, can’t you get it thru your bird-brain that it’s not cool to post articles here? Are you too stoopid to stay away from abuse?
So listen, you submissive piece of shit, quit pasting articles. Repeat after me: I will paste LINKS. I think you do like abuse, Vlad rejected your kinship, your friendship and your alliance, and you’re still around. Have you no sense of self?
Is this why you must diminish others, so you would feel good about yourself? This is why you’re an asswipte, see?

Repeat after me: I will paste LINKS.
==================
GoGreen,
Please note, the universe will not run out of electrons if somebody posts a long comment. I think it is the content of the message, not its length, that has you all stirred up. Why no remonstrance for Asoka when he posted the following comment 5 days ago?Conunstradamos said: “It’s a fascist state, bought and paid for with tax dollars. DC is just theater.”
You are going off script a bit. The standard line is that DC is just kabuki theater.
I guess the theater includes ordering all federal agencies to undertake a study and make recommendations for ways to cut spending. Obama did that. Good actor that Obama.
I guess the theater includes ordering a review of all federal operations to identify and cut wasteful spending and practices. Obama did that.
I guess the theater includes instituting enforcement for equal pay for women. Obama did that on his first day in office, thereby improving the lives of millions of women. Damn good theater that was.
I guess the theater includes beginning the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. The troops are now out of the cities and the number of deaths have decreased as a result. Socially relevant theater that saves the lives of soldiers. Not bad.
I guess the theater includes families of fallen soldiers having expenses covered and to be on hand when the body arrives at Dover AFB. Nice theatrical touch there. The families appreciate that bit of theater.
I guess the theater includes ending the Bush media blackout on war casualties and the reporting of full information. More theater that the families appreciate.
I guess the Obama theater includes ending the media blackout on covering the return of fallen soldiers to Dover AFB; the media is now permitted to do so pending adherence to respectful rules and approval of fallen soldier’s family. This is a complete change from the Bush theater version.
I guess the theater includes the White House and federal government respecting the Freedom of Information Act. Novel theater that.
I guess the theater includes instructing all federal agencies to promote openness and transparency as much as possible and limits on lobbyist’s access to the White House.
This particular theater puts limits on White House aides working for lobbyists after their tenure in the administration.
I guess the theater includes ending the previous stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan longer than their enlistment date. Rather respectful theater, wouldn’t you say?
I guess the theater includes phasing out the expensive F-22 war plane and other outdated weapons systems, which weren’t even used or needed in Iraq/Afghanistan. Money saving theater that. Bush ran up a $12 TRILLION dollar debt in his theatrical production. Just a bit different than Obama.
I guess Obama’s theater includes removing restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research and federal support for stem-cell and new biomedical research and new federal funding for science and research labs. Now there is a bit of theater that can save millions of lives, but Bush opposed it. New boss not like the old boss.
I guess Obama’s theater includes States being permitted to enact federal fuel efficiency standards above federal standards. Bush opposed that also. They seem to have different theater scripts, Conunstradamus. Haven’t you noticed that yet?
Obama’s theater includes increased infrastructure spending (roads, bridges, power plants) after years of Bush neglect.
Obama’s theater includes funds high-speed, broadband Internet access to K-12 schools and provides new funds for school construction. Did Bush miss that part of the theater or was Bush’s script different?
Obama’s theater calls for the prison at Guantanamo Bay to be phased out. Bush’s theater didn’t give a damn: lock ’em up and throw away the key and Bush justified torture and many were tortured until they died. Different theater I’d say. Obama no longer justifies torture for any reason.
Obama’s theater included the US Auto industry rescue plan, the housing rescue plan, and the $789 billion economic stimulus plan.
In Obama’s theater the public can meet with federal housing insurers to refinance (the new plan can be completed in one day) a mortgage if they are having trouble paying.
Obama’s theater calls for the secret detention facilities in Eastern Europe and elsewhere to be closed. Bush/Cheney theater opened them and tortured people in them. Different scripts wouldn’t you say, Conunstradamus?
Obama’s theater includes ending the previous policy; the US now has a no torture policy and is in compliance with the Geneva Convention standards. Bush/Cheney theater trampled on and spit upon international agreements that were the supreme law of the United States. These two, Bush and Obama, seem to have studied at different schools of drama. Their theater is so different!
Obama’s theater provided better body armor to our troops. Bush didn’t give a damn, or as Rumsfeld said, “you go to war with the army you have”
Obama’s theater includes the missile defense program being cut by $1.4 billion in 2010. The Bush script never saw a defense appropriation it didn’t like and believed throwing money at a problem would solve it.
Obama’s theater includeses starting the nuclear nonproliferation talks and building back up the nuclear inspection infrastructure/protocols. Are you beginning to regret saying “DC is just theater” Conunstradamus? I giving you facts here.
Obama’s theater is more international and includes reengaging in the treaties/agreements to protect the Antarctic, reengaging in the agreements/talks on global warming and greenhouse gas emissions.
Obama’s theater is ambulatory and makes the rounds, visiting more countries and meeting with more world leaders than any president in his first six months in office. Bush didn’t even know his lines and didn’t know it is wrong to grope other actors and didn’t know to keep his hands off the shoulders of a principal German lady actress, Chancellor Angela Merkel. Obama knew enough culturally to bow at the appropriate moments to other leaders.
the successful release of US captain held by Somali pirates; Obama authorized the SEALS to do their job and increased US Navy patrols off Somali coast. Bush didn’t pay much attention to the Somali pirate actors.
Obama theater included attractive tax write-offs for those who buy hybrid automobiles, a cash for clunkers program that offered vouchers to trade in fuel inefficient, polluting old cars for new cars, stimulating auto sales.
Obama DC theater included announcing plans to purchase fuel efficient American-made fleet for the federal government. I guess that wasn’t in the Bush theater script.
Obama DC theater included expanding the SCHIP program to cover health care for 4 million more children. Maybe Bush didn’t think his DC theater needed to pay attention to the health of children.
Obama DC theater included signing national service legislation and expanding national youth services programs.
Obama DC theater included instituting a new policy on Cuba, allowing Cuban families to return home to visit loved ones. I think Bush was tone-deaf in his theatrical productions.
Obama DC theater included ending the previous policy of not regulating and labeling carbon dioxide emissions.
Obama DC theater included expanding vaccination programs.
Obama DC theater has included immediate and efficient response to the floods in North Dakota and other natural and man-made disasters, including mine safety disasters and the Gulf of Mexico BP blowout.
Obama DC theater included closing offshore tax safe havens. Very different from Bush theater. Obama negotiated a deal with Swiss banks to permit US government to gain access to records of tax evaders and criminals. Bush was a tax evader.
Obama DC theater included ending the previous policy of offering tax benefits to corporations who outsource American jobs; the new Obama policy is to promote in-sourcing to bring jobs back.
Obama DC theater included ending the previous Bush theater practice of protecting credit card companies; in place of it Obama got new consumer protections from credit card industry’s predatory practices. Another Obama theatrical hit to protect consumers from the greed of big bankers.
Obama DC theater includes mandating that energy producing plants must begin preparing to produce 15% of their energy from renewable sources.
Obama DC theater includes lower drug costs for seniors. Bush theater gave them a big and costly doughnut hole. Obama theater is giving seniors in the doughnut hole real rebate checks in 2010.
Obama DC theater included ending the previous Bush DC theater practice of forbidding Medicare from negotiating with drug manufacturers for cheaper drugs; the federal government is now realizing hundreds of millions in savings. Nice theater that can save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Obama DC theater increased pay and benefits for military personnel. Bush theater acted like they were concerned but actually mistreated troops and their families in many ways. For example, Obama’s theater improved housing for military personnel, initiated a new policy to promote federal hiring of military spouses, improved conditions at Walter Reed Military Hospital and other military hospitals. Bush theater sucked in its treatment of veterans. No comparison with Obama theater.
Obama DC theater included increasing student loans, and increasing opportunities in AmeriCorps programs.
Obama DC theater sent envoys to the Middle East and other parts of the world that had been neglected for years by Bush theater; reengaging in multilateral and bilateral talks and diplomacy which were not even in the Bush theater script.
Obama DC theater included establishing a new cyber security office and beginning the process of reforming and restructuring the military 20 years after the Cold War to a more modern fighting force; this includes new procurement policies, increasing size of military, new technology and cyber units and operations, etc. Bush theater sucked in general on anything related to military affairs.
Obama DC theater included ending previous Bush theater policy of awarding no-bid defense contracts.
Obama DC theater ordered a review of hurricane and natural disaster preparedness.
Obama DC theater established a National Performance Officer charged with saving the federal government money and making federal operations more efficient.
Obama DC theater included helping students struggling to make college loan payments to have their loans refinanced.
Obama DC theater improved benefits for veterans.
Obama DC theater instituted a new focus on mortgage fraud.
No smoking in the Obama theater lobby: the FDA is now regulating tobacco. Obama theater ended Bush theater’s previous policy of cutting the FDA and circumventing FDA rules.
Obama DC theater includes ending Bush theater’s previous practice of having White House aides rewrite scientific and environmental rules, regulations, and reports.
Bush theater would not negotiate with “terrorists”. Obama theater authorized discussions with North Korea and private mission by Pres. Bill Clinton to secure the release of two Americans held in prisons. Damn good Obama theater production that!
Obama DC theater included authorized discussions with Myanmar and mission by Sen. Jim Web to secure the release of an American held captive.
Obama DC theater included making more loans available to small businesses.
Obama DC theater includes establishing an independent commission to make recommendations on slowing the costs of Medicare.
Obama DC theater included the appointment of the first Latina to the Supreme Court.
Obama DC theater authorized construction/opening of additional health centers to care for veterans.
Obama DC theater limited salaries of senior White House aides; which were cut to $100,000. Why didn’t Bush theater do that? You getting the idea, Conunstradamus that who is directing the theater matters in what the theatrical production is?
Obama theater deployed additional troops to Afghanistan, a “war theater” Bush neglected. Bush bombed Afghanistan but focused on Iraq. Obama theater’s new Afghan War policy limits aerial bombing and prioritizes aid, development of infrastructure, diplomacy, and good government practices by Afghans.
Obama DC theater announced the long-term development of a national energy grid with renewable sources and cleaner, efficient energy production. We might hear more about this from the Obama theater speech Tuesday June 15, 2010.
Obama DC theater returned money authorized for refurbishment of White House offices and private living quarters. Quite a difference in theatrical philosophy from Bush theater. Obama paid for redecoration of White House living quarters out of his own pocket.
Obama DC theater held first Seder in White House.
Obama DC theater is attempting to reform the nation’s healthcare system which is the most expensive in the world yet leaves almost 50 million without health insurance and millions more under insured. In eight years of Bush theater there wasn’t that much concern about those 50 million American theater goers without health insurance.
Obama DC theater has put the ball in play for comprehensive immigration reform.
Obama DC theater has announced his intention to push for energy reform. I suspect we’ll hear more about that in Tuesday June 15 theater performance.
Obama DC theater has announced Obama’s intention to push for education reform.
Obama built a swing set for the girls outside the Oval Office and his wife started an organic garden.
I could go on and on and on illustrating the differences that make a difference in peoples’ lives between Bush and Obama theatrical productions, but thinking people will notice there is a difference.
Informed thinking people will not make statements like “DC is just theater”

Correction:
A second not was missing from this sentence.
Not only have you shown a consistent tendency not to display knowledge or relate to content — though not as much as some — you have a vehement hostility, which is typical of LOWER-CLASS young males.

did you hear about the [dying] french banning the WINE AND SAUSAGE PARTIES and the PORK SOUPKITCHENS?
=============
How dare they? If there’s 3 things I love in life it’s wine, sausage and pork. I’d make a shitty Muslim, vegan or Jew.

Am glad to see these concerns worked out.
Now I can move on to annoying both the green, and the asoka. This link and quote should do the trick:amren.com/ar/1992/08/index.html
Am referring to this article:
The White Man’s Burden
An appeal to white racial solidarity, written when such an appeal was still respectable.
“Josey noted that national and racial loyalty is sapped by individualism as much as by internationalism, and that the former may masquerade as the latter. For a coward who is afraid to fight for his country, what better excuse than to claim to be a world citizen and a lover of all mankind?”

Well, here I go again.amren.com/ar/1992/09/index.html
It turns out I am far from the only one who does not believe in a 1-size fits all educational policy.
People have different abilities and interests and develop at different rates. Some are more competitive and individualist and some are more cooperative. Allowances should be made for temperamental as well as intellectual differences. Also, boys need more physical activity than girls just to let of steam though girls may need more aerobic activity to keep from getting fat.
This article deals with intellectual differences:
*****
AR: To get back to the intelligence question again, if society were to recognize the genetic origin of intelligence to the extent that you think it should, can you sketch out for us some of the things that society would do differently?
Jensen: There has to be much more emphasis than there is now on a more highly differentiated educational system — an educational system that allows people to develop to the maximum in whatever way their own potentials and abilities allow. So you would have much more educational diversity. You wouldn’t expect the same goals for everyone. Another would be a difference in the timing of the introduction of educational materials. There’d be a greater recognition of something that used to be called educational readiness for learning. We know that children differ enormously in their readiness to learn to read, to deal with numbers, and so forth.
Nearly all children within the normal range — by that I mean IQs of 70 and up, who don’t have organic brain damage and aren’t severely retarded — they can learn to read, provided it’s introduced in the right way at the right age. If you introduce a child who is in the 80 or so IQ range to reading at the usual age of six, he’s much more likely to fail than children with IQs of 100 or higher, and much more likely to be given up on by the time he’s at an age at which he could read with the same level of facility as the average six-year-old — that is to say, when he’s nine or ten. The average black entering first grade is about a year behind in level of development. A year is a crucial difference when it comes to readiness for reading and arithmetic.

I think your deafness hypothesis has more
than a grain of truth to it, Dee. However,
whether they’re deaf or not, I’m just sick
to death of people screwing up public
venues by having wires sticking out of
their ears or a narcotized stare at a
laptop.
I don’t think Jim writes enough about how
much damage pop computer culture is doing
to the world … to it’s social and family
relationships, it’s killing of the art of
conversation, etc.. And why does EVERY
bar in the world now seem to have ten
TV sets. I think the combo of all these
gadgets and things like TEN TVs per tavern
are all creating a civiization of passionless
zombies.
If Huxley were alive today, he’d probably
regard the “plugged-in” lifestyle itself
as the Soma Drug of “Brave New World”.
E.

Face it folks, we’re a third-rate nation with a first-rate military (for now anyway).
The USA military first-rate? See Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. for examples of the USA military being unable, even after ten years of fighting, unable to defeat pajama-clad peoples who are defending their own land against the USA invaders/aggressors.

Petraeus, the war’s top military boss, said last week that he would recommend delaying the [July 2011] pullout if conditions in Afghanistan warranted it.”
Next someone will come up with the idea of asking the generals on the ground if they need more troops.
Asking generals if they need more troops is like asking a 5-year-old if he needs more candy.
I think ten years and THREE TRILLION dollars is quite enough for this war. The generals should honor their word promising a July 2011 pullout.

That is correct. They are growing increasingly unable to walk, talk, and think. Their isolation, ignorance, and passivity renders them more easy to defeat and exploit. Am wondering how one can take advantage of their state. Reducing labor rates comes to mind.
Geoff

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